City of Devils Book Review

City of Devils

Justin Robinson

Candlemark & Gleam

Pub Date: Sep 24 2013

4/5 Stars

   A quick summary, “

World War II was only the beginning. When the Night War ravages America, turning it into a country of monsters, humans become a downtrodden minority. Nick Moss is the only human private eye in town, and he’s on the trail of a missing city councilor. With monsters trying to turn him – or, better yet, simply kill him – he’s got to watch his back while trying to find his man. Or mummy, as the case may be.
Once, it was the City of Angels. But now, Los Angeles is the City of Devils…and Nick has a devil of a job to do.” Goodreads.com

 

     Going into this book I had no idea what expect.  I have to say that if City of Devils does nothing else, it does original.  I loved the world, the characters, it was an excellent book.  The idea of using every monster ever in the same book at the same time; to help make your alternative history Raymond Chandler story was a stroke of brilliance.   However, said tale wasn’t very good.  That was my only real problem with City of Devils; great world, great characters, and one long boring story.  Boring is a bit harsh, I suppose; not boring more like uninteresting.  Too much happens that has no real effect on the story as a whole.  Without getting into spoilers, the book spends a REALLY long time just wondering around trying find some plot points to bump into.  There are no side stories or alternative plot lines.  So you are stuck with what you are given.  I suppose this didn’t really bother me all that much until I reached around 2/3 of the way through and things really had formulated very much yet.  The finale, while in a very Raymond Chandler/Columbo style seemed sudden and bit forced.  But this book is really not about this half baked story.  It’s about the incredible characters and world Justin Robinson has created; that is the reason I’m recommending it.  Also, if you really love Raymond Chandler type stories; maybe you will like this.

    Note on availability: Normally when I write one of these reviews I put a link in to Amazon so the reader can buy the book if they desire.  It appears I’m unable to do this with this book.  I also checked Barnes and Noble and they don’t have it either.  So, I hope this book s made more broadly available so people who didn’t get advance copies can read it as well as everyone else.