3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Despair, helplessness -- and why isn't this in the poli sci / current events section?, August 30, 2011
For those of you unfamiliar with the previous two books, _Sympathy for the Devil_ (Sympathy for the Devil (Morris and Chastain Investigations))is the third book in the Morris And Chastain Investigations series by Justin Gustainis. The first two books are _Black Magic Woman_ and _Evil Ways_. The genre is dark urban fantasy, modern day occult, modern day paranormal, or some variation thereof. The main characters are white witch Libby Chastain and demon hunter / vampire hunter Quincey Morris.
Gustainis is *excellent* at interweaving popular culture references into his books. Quincey Morris himself is a descendant of the Texan Quincey Morris who died by Jonathan Harker's side in Bram Stoker's Dracula. There is a very funny passing reference to a vampire hunter in St. Louis named Anita who has become more concerned about who she's doing than what she's doing.
Gustainis does a good job with physical descriptions.
Unfortunately, that's about all I can say that's complimentary about _Sympathy for the Devil_.
Gustainis used to do a good job with characters & character descriptions -- many of the secondary characters in his previous books had complete back stories and their actions correlated nicely with what the reader knew about the character and their backstory. The South African detective from the first novel was haunted by black magic murders he'd seen in Africa (including that of his own daughter), but also sympathized with the FBI agent he worked with who didn't believe in magic. One of the evil witches from the second novel was after a particular white witch because of an oath of vengeance going back to the Salem witch trials.
But in _Sympathy for the Devil_, the characterization is much sparser and the book is poorer for it. There's a political operative whose back story apparently exists only so Gustainis can make numerous comments about how much dirty work the character did for "the Bushies" in 2004 (about the third or fourth time that character started whining about how far you've fallen in the Washington D.C. dirty tricks department when "even Karl Rove" won't return your phone calls, I wanted to throw the book across the room). There's an assassin brought back from hell and since he was brought back from hell, his back story is pretty much "you killed people for the U.S. government, turned out that didn't absolve you so you got sent to hell 25+ years ago, your wife's dead, we needed an assassin here on earth & you were the one we picked". Oh, and he's horny. That's about it for that character's backstory.
One of the primary antagonists in _Sympathy for the Devil_ is Mary Margaret. Her back story is pretty much non-existent. She's been a chief of staff for a particular politician for 18 years, is very efficient and good at her job. That's it for backstory -- school, college, friends, parents, siblings, family, and so on all unmentioned.
Even starting from a backstory that flimsy, Mary Margaret's character arc still makes NO sense. In previous novels, it's said time & again that magic in general is not that common in the modern world, black magic even less so, and really powerful black magic like summoning demons is pretty rare and only learned with great determination and at great personal cost. So Mary Margaret finds a black magician who can summon demons, knows exactly when & how to disrupt the summoning so the demon is here but uncontrolled, has brought along a good friend for the demon to possess, and is already on a first name basis with the demon who is summoned. But as the book progresses, she becomes more & more unhappy with the demon's callousness, cruelty, and delight in her degradation. And those two sentences don't go together AT ALL when they are describing the same character. How did Mary Margaret get to be so knowledgeable yet remain so naive about the nature of evil? How could she be that naive about the nature of evil yet be that knowledgeable about the names of mid-level demons & how to summon them?
What victories the good guys do achieve have almost nothing to do with the efforts of the good guys, but are because of arrogance and infighting among the bad guys. Yes, the good guys help, but if the bad guys hadn't been at times stupidly arrogant or intentionally working to disrupt the efforts of a rival bad guy, the good guys wouldn't have had a chance.
And speaking of the bad guys and good guys, where are the forces of heaven in all this? In previous books, there were human agents of good fighting human agents of evil. Actual demons were extremely rare. But in _Sympathy with the Devil_, we've got a mid-level demon possessing a public figure, another mid-level demon running around in human form, a former damned assassin resurrected from hell, and a 24-hour appearance by one of the top-level demon lords. And the forces of good are . . . having a centuries-long gin rummy tournament up in heaven? The forces of heaven can't even help get an exorcism right (totally different demon than all the ones I mentioned above, and that exorcism failed so when the book ends that particular possessed mortal is in a state mental institution, still possessed, her parents still grieving).
And that's not even getting into Gustainis making his main character Morris into a punching bag. If you thought the hellfire mark he received at the end of book two, _Evil Ways_, was unpleasant, wait until you get through _Sympathy for the Devil_.
Giving it two stars, and not one, because the writing was good enough to keep me reading it until the end & Gustainis does write some very insightful (and non-party specific) comments about the way the current state primaries & press coverage affects campaigns for U.S. president -- although I still wish Gustainis would have just written a political science non-fiction work & not tried to use a fiction novel as a vehicle for his political views.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Urban Fantasy, August 22, 2011
This was another exciting episode in the Morris and Chastain series. Quincy Morris begins the story in a depressed state after an exorcism goes wrong. He feels guilt for what he feels were mistakes on his part. The priest who was conducting the exorcism and who is a friend of Quincy's was blinded by the demon inside the teenage girl. When Libby has trouble contacting Quincy, she visits him in Texas and helps to pull him out of his depression and self-destructive behavior. Just in time too....
Suspicions have been raised that one of the Republican presidential hopefuls - Howard Stark - might be a demon. Quincy and Libby are being asked to investigate. Libby is brought in when one of Stark's political opponents dies in a freak accident at home. Libby smells black magic at the scene and has her suspicions raised.
It seems that there are factions in Hell. One group of demons supports Stark's bid for the White House while a second group opposes it. The second group has returned a CIA assassin killed in 1983 to life and tasked him with killing Stark. He is Mal Peters. He has as his partner a fourth rank demon known as Ashley. Half the story is told from their points of view as they try to find a way to kill Stark.
Both groups come together after an assassination attempt on Stark is thwarted by Libby's actions. But they soon realize that their goals are the same - removing the demon from Stark's body and returning it to Hell before it can cause Armageddon. Only their ways of accomplishing the goal is different. They end up working together in a thrilling climax to the story.
The thing I like best about the Morris and Chastain series is how very real and possible it all seems. The paranormal is interwoven so seamlessly with reality as I know it. The world building is fascinating and well done. I recommend the series to all lovers of urban fantasy.
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