Sandman Slim is back for more in book 5 of Kadrey’s reliably entertaining urban fantasy series. He’s not the devil anymore, so it’s back to LA to work at thwarting the arrival of some pesky old gods; you know, the usual sort of thing.

Plenty of authors are playing in this space, but for my money Kadrey is doing the best job. He’s clearly a student of the noir/hardboiled tradition, and that shows through; our hero — his actual name is James Stark — has much in common with the gumshoes written by Chandler and Hammett and Crumley, to say nothing of the character’s namesake. If angels, devils, supernatural mysteries, and tales of revenge aren’t interesting, this isn’t the series for you, but if you’re into both noir and modern fantasy, you might want to look into the first book — you absolutely don’t want to read them out of order.