The Devil You Know

by: Mike Carey

Published by: Warner

Reviewed by Alex McGilvery

The Devil You Know is a novel set in a post-millennium London in which the dead have risen as ghosts, zombies and worse. Felix Castor is an exorcist in that London. But Fix is more Mickey Spillane than Father Lankester Merrin, carrying a tin whistle in place of a gun. Castor is hired to exorcize a ghost at the Bonnington Archive. He takes the job in spite of a warning from the demon that inhabits the body of his friend. It doesn’t take long for him to learn that the ghost is the least of the problems at the archive. Felix starts looking at the reason for the haunting, making friends and enemies on the way to solving the mystery.

The author doesn’t try to explain the rising of the dead, but uses their presence to reshape the London landscape. (Streets surrounding cemeteries become the new ghettoes.) Carey gives the reader a world that is darker and creepier than our own, but still filled with the full range of human endeavor. Felix himself is tormented by the very work that he does best.

Carey has written characters that live in all three dimensions. They pull you into their lives and make you care about what is happening.

Mike Carey has written a novel that is satisfying on every level. He presents a clever mystery, thinks about the nature of evil, and even throws in a measure of romance, all without getting in the way of the story he is telling. I am looking forward to Carey’s next book.

Armchair Interviews agrees.