Dead Men's Boots by Mike Carey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think this novel deserves a good long run and a mighty jump... the waters might be cold, but it's like Fix says about death. You get used to it real damn quick.

This world of mystery continues along its deep mystery roots, including such near caricatures of women that it nearly passes through to the other side, as if through death, to become something utterly strange and familiar. Femme Fatale? Try Femme Demonic, and you'll be on solid, unconsecrated grounds and wishing you'd paid just a little more attention to what your mother tried to tell you about 'dem women.

I'm not just talking about Juliet. I'm talking about all undead women forced into poltergeist holding patterns of serial murder.

(But don't assume you'll really guess the un-beating heart of this locked-room mystery. Things tend to shift and slide as in all good mysteries, but it can get awfully complicated when you throw in immortal demons feeding on lusts or rarified murders, zombies being brutally mistreated by uncaring main characters, or plain old sympathies for the devil. Welcome to the jungle.)

I have to admit I like this one better than the previous two volumes. There's enough twists and turns and eventual reconnecting threats and threads to make anyone's head swim, but it's the cold heart of Fix that ties everything back together in the end.

Is Fix really that likeable?

Jury is still out on that one. He borders a lot more closely to being an anti-hero than two-books would have you believe. It's easy to assume, since he is pretty passionate about helping the downtrodden dead, that he might be able to give a shit for any of the living.

Frankly, I'm not really sure about that. He gets along all right and enters into all types of social contracts readily enough, but like I said, his heart's really not in it.

It's probably pretty fortunate that he's not an overpowered UF protagonist.

He might then have the power potential and the heart to murder the world. (Am I the only one to think this? lol, maybe... but I just can't bring myself to TRUST him.)

Still, a fine and entertaining read!

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