Mike Carey

Vicious Circle isn’t the first novel featuring Felix Castor written by Mike Carey, but it is the first I’ve read and I don’t seem to be missing much in the way of back story by jumping in at the second novel. The world in which these novels is set is really interesting, it’s quite a lot like out world, and in the not very distant future when there are spirits coming back from where ever it is that they go, and lots of spirits are choosing to stick around after their bodies have given up, but not in a lame twilight-y sort of way. And I’m really enjoying Felix Castor –he’s an exorcist type guy in a world that has zombies and were-things and succubae and stuff. Oh, and ghosts, lots and lots of ghosts. Not all of the scary sounding things are bad, not very many of them are actually evil, bunches of the zombies just want to pass the time until they are too rotten to function anymore in a relatively pleasant way. But anyway, he’s an exorcist type guy who helps to deal with the not so good spirits which become zombies and ghosts and were-things and also helps out with the police a little. Because he can communicate with some ghosts it’s helped with some murders and deaths, like the ghosts can tell the police who killed them and where the body is hidden. It’s a pretty weird job, and very cool. Anyway...because Felix is a ghost hunting private detective type guy he gets hired to do things like find missing ghosts and get demons out of churches. It makes for a very interesting story and to be honest I enjoyed it a whole lot. Vicious Circle is not the most awesomely written thing I’ve ever read, or the most intellectual but the story and the characters mean it was definitely a good way to lose a couple of evenings.