Drake

I picked this book up as I was looking for more urban fantasy to try. I love the Dresden files and given that new books in that series only seem to appear infrequently, I was getting an urban fantasy itch. This book stood out as it was recommended by talented and under-appreciated author Dave Hutchinson, but also because it looked like it had that gritty, grungy quality about it.

Don Drake is a London based hitman who uses magical means to carry out his assassinations, has a drink problem, an even bigger gambling problem and doesn't really seem to have many redeeming qualities. He's been trying to get away from the business for a while, but running up a gambling debt with the wrong demon, he is forced to carry out a hit. Unfortunately the gig goes bad and the other-worldly creatures that he's summoned for the job kill an innocent child in the process. This brings down the fury of the Greek mythology Furies and it's only with the intervention of an almost-fallen angel known as Trixie that he manages to escape a lifetime of torture.

But of course everything comes at a cost and it isn't long before Drake is drawn back into the world he's trying to escape, battling dark magicians, the Furies and trying to foil Lucifer's plan to make Trixie's fall from grace a bit more permanent.

It's an interesting idea to have the main character a Hieromancer hitman, essentially summoning demons and sending them after the people he needs to kill. Most of his power isn't actually his own, but derives from the burned man, which I'm not going to say any more about other than it's another great idea. We join Don as he hit's a fairly low point in his life (but oh boy is it gonna get lower), with gambling debts, a serious drink problem and alienation of his friends. He's pretty much as anti-hero as they come, he's cowardly, he lies, cheats and even steals from his friends. That's not to say he isn't trying to do better though. He is at least trying to get away from his life as a hitman, and does feel remorse for what he does, or at least for some of the things he does anyway. But as we all know, it's never that easy and in Don's case his job means he mixes with some of the worst of humanity and those much worse than humanity. When you have skills like Don does, people (and when I say people, often that's actually demons) are just not going to give up that easily making use of those skills, and these are not the type of people you say no to, or at least not more than once anyhow.

The London shown in the book is definitely on the seedier side, and in the places around where Don frequents the veil between dimensions gets really thin and some demons slip through every now and then. The whole book has this seedy, grimy aspect to it, with dark streets, dark demons and even darker magic. I enjoyed how underplayed this was, you just accept that, yeah it's a dark and grimy part of London, with demons. Having lived in London it wouldn't surprise me to know such places exist.

The quality of the writing is good, especially for a debut novel, and it's a quick read, with a fast pace, lots of action and a good level of wit. There is little wasted space and most of the time the story moves forward convincingly. The ending is a tense affair and wraps things up well. Overall a really good urban fantasy that sits up there with the best of them ,but is different enough to stand out from the crowd. I look forward to reading the next in the series, Dominion.