The Devil You Know

In Felix Castor's world the risen dead are so common that exorcists advertise in the Yellow Pages. Only Castor has begun to question what happens to these returned spirits once he's dispatched them. Do he and the other ghost hunters have the right to play God with these souls? Author Mike Carey, known for his horror comics like "Hellblazer" and "Lucifer," adds a new dimension to an old story. Performer Michael Kramer delivers the required solemnity to the text and, when appropriate, a light touch of humor. More importantly, he makes listeners feel the anguish of the undead, in this case, a young woman compelled to haunt a museum. Compelling, scary, and ultimately rewarding. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

September 17, 2007
Kramer easily creates the persona of the novel's narrator, Felix Castor. Castor is a practicing exorcist in London, where he is able to see the ghosts of a small number of British dead. Kramer, using a mild nasal tone with emphasis on vowels, plays Castor with a light British accent that establishes the character's humor, first demonstrated at a party. The exorcist and the dead are each credible, no small feat for Kramer as he wends a smooth path over the thickets of Carey's overlong plot. If his voice is less successful for the female characters and for some of the weird characters Castor must encounter, Kramer is still quite capable. Simultaneous release with the Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, June 4).

Starred review from June 4, 2007
A
violent ghost in a world where spirits are rarely mean-spirited is a clue to a deeper mystery in this engrossing dark fantasy debut from comics-writer Carey. Felix “Fix” Castor is an itinerant exorcist who (like a certain famous group of Hollywood ghost-evicters) alternates between dispatching spooks and doing stage magic at ungrateful children's birthday parties. When he's summoned to end a haunting at London's prestigious Bonnington Archive, he finds a vengeful specter with a blood-veiled face that resists methods for extirpating the usually docile dead. When Castor begins probing more deeply, he quickly finds himself harassed by a ravenous succubus, a belligerent fellow exorcist and a slimy Eastern European pimp. The resolution of this ingeniously multilayered tale will satisfy fans of both fantasy and detective fiction. Fix Castor's wisecracking cleverness in the face of weird nemeses makes him the perfect hardboiled hero for a new supernatural noir series.
10-city author tour.