The Devil You Know [Hardcover]

Mike Carey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2007

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghostbuster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle--but there's a risk: Sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London--just to pay the bills, you understand. But what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize. That's OK: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It's the living who piss him off...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Aviolent 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. (July)
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Review

'Sleazy and down-at-heel and quintessentially London, Mike Carey's Felix Castor steps effortlessly into the growing field of supernatural noir and brings with him a blast of fresh, British air. Think Shoestring meets Constantine, with backing vocals from the shades of Leslie Charteris and Anais Nin. Carey's plotting is tight and laconic, and laced with shivery, understated horrors from both the human world and beyond. It grabs you from the first out-of-nowhere nasty surprise, and rarely lets go thereafter. You'll be up all night finishing this one.' Richard Morgan, bestselling author of ALTERED CARBON 'Imagine an unholy cross between Buffy, Jonathan Creek and hardboiled noir, set it in the sleazier bits of London, and you've got Mike Carey's The Devil You Know, a supernatural crime novel featuring Felix Castor, reluctant magician and part-time exorcist. Britain is filling up with zombies, ghosts, werewolves and demons; it's something to do with having entered the new millennium, maybe. All anyone knows for sure is that the beggars in street doorways are as likely to be dead as not. Recently retired, following a vicious encounter with a demon that left one of his friends in a very strange state of mind indeed, Castor owes his landlady rather too much rent. So when a ghost shows up in a library, Castor takes the job of exorcising it. A simple ghost, a library, how hard can it be? The reader knows the answer, the author knows the answer and so do Castor and the ghost. Fast, fun and furious, worth it for the final joke alone.' THE GUARDIAN 'Entertaining, well-paced, intelligently plotted and full of memorable characters' THE TIMES 'Witty, deadpan and shudderingly noir ... With a plot nailed down tighter than a coffin lid, Carey drives this thriller like Chandler at the wheel of a runaway hearse, combining the mundane with the monstrous to depict a capital city where demons, ghouls and werewolves share the dirty streets with the living, and he does it so you believe it. You've heard the rumour that Londoners are never more than a few feet from a rat - Carey will persuade you the same is true of the undead.' DAILY EXPRESS '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.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review) 'It's some way into The Devil You Know that the brilliance of Mike Carey's 'unique selling point' strikes you ... Carey's established a fascinating world and character to further explore, not least thanks to a lovely final twist that leaves you wondering how Castor and his unlikely new partner will work together...' STARBURST 'The Devil You Know is a stunning supernatural thriller, and one so brilliantly written that it simply blows away the competition in a field saturated at the moment. It's only April, but here, I guarantee, is one of the best books you'll read this year!' SF REVU.COM 'Extremely impressive - entertaining and assured. You're left with the eerie feeling that Felix Castor will be haunting us for a long time to come.' SFX "Carey's writing is nimble and witty, his dialogue believable ... [a] quirky, dark and imaginative tale that compels readers to keep turning pages long after they should have gotten to sleep' KIRKUS (starred review) 'The pacing is impeccable. There's plenty of action and surprising twists.' ROMANTIC TIMES (four and a half stars) 'It's an audacious move for a first-time prose novelist to choose as his protagonist a character who sounds like the setup to a joke, but that's exactly what Carey has done. Narrator Felix Castor is a hard-boiled exorcist who also dabbles in magic. The real trick, though, is that Carey pulls it off. Set in London, the story follows Castor as his financial woes lead him to take on a job in a career he thought he'd sworn off. It's one last exorcism, Castor tells himself, just to pay the bills, but he quickly finds he's taken on a great deal more when a haunted archive draws him into a sordid mystery. Carey has already made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels for, among other things, his work on Hellblazer. That series shares with this novel an attention to the seedier side of magic and the occult. Ghost hunters in Carey's novel are something akin to the private eyes in a Raymond Chandler story, and the recipe works startlingly well. While appealing to fans of Carey's graphic novels, this will likely also find praise among readers of horror and those looking for an offbeat mystery. Highly recommended.' LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review) 'An exorcist with attitude, Morgan Kingsley is sure to win Black a legion of fans' Kelley Armstrong 'A sassy heroine ... a sexy hero, great secondary characters and a storyline that keeps you reading, and this one is definitely a keeper...' Keri Arthur --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1ST edition (July 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446580309
• ISBN-13: 978-0446580304
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #902,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mike Carey got into writing through comic books, where his horror/fantasy series Lucifer garnered numerous international awards and was nominated for five Eisners. From there he moved into novels and screenplays, while still maintaining a presence in the comics world (he is currently writing two of Marvel's flagship titles, X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four). His movie Frost Flowers, an erotic ghost story, is currently in production with Hadaly/Bluestar Pictures. He lives in London, England, about as far as you can get from the centre of the city and still have access to the London Underground train network. His wife, Linda, writes fantasy for young readers under the pseudonym A.J. Lake. They have three children and an implausibly beautiful cat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cat and mouse game in the realm of ghosts, November 13, 2007

By 

- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Devil You Know (Hardcover)

This was an entertaining read, a detective story that involved solving something other than your usual crimes; this time the supernatural is involved and who better to battle it than Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist with musical talent.

Witty, charming and intelligent, he maps out the grid of the ghosts he's getting rid by playing music on his tin whistle, but this time something else is going on, for once Felix starts to care about why the ghost is haunting the Bonnington Archive, a posh literary mecca of manuscripts and forgotten memories. Instead of wanting to get rid of the pesky hooded lady in white he realizes that something fishy is going on in the seemingly civilized and proper world of art and treasures and some people have crossed moral lines resulting in a haunting. Felix has other things to worry about, a big guy named Scrub who forces him to take on other projects, a mysterious succubus summoned from hell to get rid of him - someone doesn't want him to solve the enigma - and a brothel pimp who wants him to work on his side. Suffocated by negative sources he must solve the mystery of the mute ghost while under the watchful eyes of Alice, the lady in charge who seems to run the Archive while sleeping with the boss.

I liked the set up; the archives - quite an interesting place since I love libraries and various other paper storage places. It echoed of slight creepiness at night when Felix would sneak in to do his work, while seemingly alone he bumped into some things that kept threatening his life. This book was a fun read, although not too deep it still kept me interested enough to finish it in record time and the ending has quite interesting, I didn't make the connections until they were shown to me, so that's good, surprises are always welcome in my world of reading. I also liked that it left some threads running, I can only conclude that this story line will continue but with different clues and a new crime.

- Kasia S.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comic Book Writer Makes Good on Novel, July 8, 2007

By 

Autumn Star Kindelspire "The Autumn Star" (Westchester, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Devil You Know (Hardcover)

I am a big fan of Mike Carey, admittedly. I love Lucifer and HellBlazer, both comic books written by Mr. Carey. It excited me to see a comic book writer writing a novel, because I always hope it will shed more public light on what amazing writers are in the comic world right now. (There have been some great cross overs, such as Neil Gaiman, but we can always use one more.)

Anyway, when I first picked up The Devil You Know and read the jacket, I thought perhaps this would be a soft-boiled version of John Constantine. I was wrong.

Felix Castor is close to Constantine, no argument there. They share an attitude that is grim and at the same time blackly humorous. They're both working in the trade of the spirit world, and they both have friends with chips on the shoulder, chips pointed at them. However, "Fix" has no place for magic in his exorcisms, and does his best to be an atheist. Constantine's bread and butter is magic, and he knows too well that there is a heaven and a hell.

The Devil You Know is a witty mystery with delightfully dark characters. I read it in a day, sucked into the story as sure as if Fix was playing the whistle into my ear. I loved it, I loved each character, I loved guessing at the next plot twist, and being pleasantly surprised when I was right, and more pleased when I was wrong.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story, a good murder mystery, or just good writing, great characters, and a twisting storyline.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Damn!, October 21, 2007

By 

TJ "Brewser" (Pa., USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil You Know (Hardcover)

I just finished the book 10 minutes ago. Mike Carey hit on every cliche of the hard-boiled detective genre. And I mean that as the highest possible compliment. All the best hard-boiled detective stories are ultimately about the murder victim, and a flawed champion seeking to lay his or her troubled ghost to rest by exposing the culprit. (For the record, I'm aware of how pompous that last sentence was. I've got a few beers in me. Give me a freakin break.) Carey adds a new layer with the supernatural element, making the victim's ghost a real rather than a metaphorical presence. The casting of an actual succubus in the femme fatale role was a nice touch, too. And no matter how outlandish the story became, Carey's feel for realistic settings and characters kept the whole thing grounded. It was gritty, disturbing, funny and surprisingly tender. At the end, Carey seemed to be laying the groundwork for a continuing series. I hope I'm right, because I'd like to read more.