‘Thicker Than Water’ – Mike Carey (Orbit)

When I first started out with the blog I tried to be really good and disciplined with the reading pile; switching between publishers/genre, making sure everyone got a fair turn, you know the kind of thing. As time went on however, all my good intentions went south in the worst way possible as I found myself reverting to the tried and tested method of ‘that looks good, I’ll try that next’... Even now I try to read books in the order that they’re sent (a hard enough task when you consider how long certain books have been in the pile, I might have to do a post about that...) but every so often a book comes along that blows my reading order right out of the water. Mike Carey’s latest instalment in his ‘Felix Castor’ series is one of those books and featured prominently in my mental list of ‘Books I’m looking forward to in 2009’.
Having read ‘Thicker Than Water’, I can tell you that it was well worth the wait. Fans of the series are really going to enjoy this one...

When the police knock on Felix Castor’s door his first thought is that his sins have finally caught up with him, one sin in particular... One trip to a South London housing estate later and Felix finds out that life still holds a few surprises for him. After all, it’s not every day that you find your own name painted in blood at a crime scene...
This is only the beginning though, the housing estate in the grip of an epidemic of violence too brutal to be anything other than supernaturally caused. Felix knows it and the Anathemata (exorcised militant wing of the Catholic Church) know it too. And what is Felix’ brother doing lurking in the shadows? Felix has some work to do before hell breaks loose. And then he finds that it already has...

I’ll be straight with you all; I’m a big fan of the ‘Felix Castor’ series so you may just want to have a pinch of salt handy to take with everything I say. The bottom line though is that I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Thicker Than Water’ and if you’re a fan then I reckon you will too. If you’re a fan of intelligently written urban fantasy and haven’t picked this series up yet then do yourself a favour, get yourself a copy of ‘The Devil You Know’ and get reading.

Right from the very opening paragraph, Mike Carey takes us on a dark journey through the seamier sides of London, Felix Castor’s head and Hell itself. While I can’t vouch for the descriptions of Hell (tantalisingly few), I’ve worked in the Elephant & Castle area of London and Carey’s description of it is spot on. It’s not somewhere you want to be at all, let alone live there...

The story itself is one hell of a ride, just not the one that you might expect. Given Castor’s line of business and his attitude towards it (freelance exorcist who likes to get all the facts before he takes any action) the plot inevitably throws up lots of questions that are answered over the course of the book. Think carefully before congratulating yourself on having worked it all out, everything fits together perfectly but nothing is quite as it seems... All credit to Carey for tying everything together in a conclusion that is explosive on more than one level. I was left shaking my head, in awe, by the end of it all.
Carey also starts to let some pretty big hints drop about the plot arc that has been running for four books now. It’s hard to say too much about it without giving it all away but what I can say is that it will shift everything into a whole new perspective and give Castor some real food for thought.

Castor himself doesn’t really change as a character (from the last three books) and I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. In a sense he doesn’t really need to change at all. The series, so far, has been more about the dangers he faces rather than how he develops as a character and that’s not a bad thing in itself. Castor is a well rounded character, with plenty going on already, and this frees up time to concentrate on threats posed by the plot. There’s also the promise of things to come, in the next book, which will force Castor to change his outlook. The promise of momentous things to come balances out the fact that Castor hasn’t really changed at all and yet, at the same time, there is a hint of stagnation that dragged things down ever so slightly for me. Having said that though, if you’re reading an ‘urban fantasy noir’ tale though, you should expect certain rules to be adhered to...

This is only a very small niggle though. ‘Thicker Than Water’ more than meets the standards set by its predecessors and promises great things to come. I’m going to be around to see them happen!

Nine and a Half out of Ten