The Devil You Know

 by Mike Carey

Warner Books $24.99; 400 pp

There’s something about Mike Carey’s face that reminds me of Steven King, although their features are quite different. Perhaps it is the writer’s version of ‘the mark’ by which magicians recognize each other, as Jadis explained to Digory in The Magician’s Nephew.

Set in London, The Devil You Know is a rollercoaster ride that takes you into some very dark, scary places. Felix “Fix” Castor (don’t you love the connotations of Castor oil and deft luck?) is an exorcist by default – he didn’t want to be one, but he has a natural aptitude, and the dead are now nearly numerous as the living in the world. Castor uses music, played on a penny whistle, to lay ghosts and zombies to rest; but he has quit this line of work since a mistake he made caused a friend, Rafi, to become fused with the essence of the devil Asmodeus. No one likes this arrangement. Castor is out a friend; Rafi is confined to an insane asylum; Rafi’s girlfriend, (who happens to be Castor’s landlady) Pen, is lonely; Asmodeus is bored and furious. But even though Asmodeus is malicious, he is the devil Castor knows, and he just might offer a better deal than certain humans who offer Castor their own versions of damnation and death threats.

First off, Castor earns the undying hatred of a cop when a birthday party goes seriously wrong. Castor had been hired as the magician entertainer, but Birthday Boy and his buddies are not amused, except when they are bullying Birthday Boy’s stepbrother. Castor might not have interfered, except that there is also a ghost in the house. By the time he is escorted out the door, Castor has shifted the family dynamics drastically, but he does not get paid.

Then Castor is offered a job exorcising a ghost in an Archives storage facility. Like the tip of an iceberg, the really dangerous stuff is under the surface. Castor has to find the key to communicating with a ghost who can’t talk, and when she can, it’s not in any language he knows. Opposed to his investigations are many whose works are threatened by investigative light shone into dark places, including a slime ball of a crime lord, his loup-garou heavy, and a succubus who really won’t take no for an answer.

If the name Mike Carey rings a bell, it might be because he has been writing for Marvel’s X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He also has a movie in production: Frost Flowers, which we’ll probably review in a future issue. – Chris Paige