Happy Hour in Hell Book Review

Happy Hour in Hell

Tad Williams

PENGUIN GROUP Berkley, NAL / Signet Romance, DAW

DAW Hardcover

Sept 3, 2013

5/5 Stars 

      

              A summary for people who need one and can’t find one on their own:

               “I’ve been told to go to Hell more times than I can count. But this time I’m actually going.
My name’s Bobby Dollar, sometimes known as Doloriel, and of course, Hell isn’t a great place for someone like me—I’m an angel. They don’t like my kind down there, not even the slightly fallen variety. But they have my girlfriend, who happens to be a beautiful demon named Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands. Why does an angel have a demon girlfriend? Well, certainly not because it helps my career.
She’s being held hostage by one of the nastiest, most powerful demons in all of the netherworld—Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. He already hates me, and he’d like nothing better than to get his hands on me and rip my immortal soul right out of my borrowed but oh-so-mortal body.
But wait, it gets better! Not only do I have to sneak into Hell, make my way across thousands of miles of terror and suffering to reach Pan- demonium, capital of the fiery depths, but then I have to steal Caz right out from under Eligor’s burning eyes and smuggle her out again, past demon soldiers, hellhounds, and all the murderous creatures imprisoned there for eternity. And even if I somehow manage to escape Hell, I’m also being stalked by an undead psychopath named Smyler who’s been following me for weeks. Oh, and did I mention that he can’t be killed?
So if I somehow survive Hell, elude the Grand Duke and all his hideous minions and make it back to the real world, I’ll still be the most hunted soul in Creation. But at least I’ll have Caz. Gotta have something to look forward to, right?
So just pour me that damn drink, will you? I’ve got somewhere to go.” Amazon.com

 

      Ever since Tad Williams blew in to San Judas with old Bobby Dollar, things just haven’t been the same.  And that fellow readers is how we like it.  Happy Hour in Hell is the best book yet in what is becoming a fine little series for Tad Williams.  This time in Hell, which to my mind was handled absolutely perfectly by Mr. Williams.  In my experience Hell is done one of three ways: not at all(it’s just darkness), too seriously(Dante?), or too flippantly(Well it’s Hell, get over it!).  Tad Williams manages a fourth way, a kind of amalgamation of 2 and 3.  Which turns out to be just perfect.  The world building in Hell was SO GOOD in fact that I never wanted to leave.  It was so interesting, around every corner it seemed like Bobby met another interesting character.  The story is full of action, suspense, and mystery.  I have to hand it to Tad Williams that he made this episode of the Bobby Dollar series feel so good and so cohesive that the reader is never sitting around wondering what the threads of the mysteries lead to.  This I can’t say about Dirty Streets of Heaven, the first book in the series.  But I can say that Dirty Streets was a completely contained work.  I can’t say that about Happy Hour in Hell.  This book doesn’t assume you’ve read Dirty Streets of Heaven, but what it does assume is that your going to read the next book.  Which is fine, I just would have liked a little more intact of an ending.  This isn’t to say the end is a cliffhanger; the book just stops.  Which while I did mind this a bit, the rest of the book was so good.  That it completely made up for it.  I just hope the next book comes out soon.  Because I’m sure, like me, once you reach the end of Happy Hour in Hell you will be incredibly anxious to find out what happens next.