The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)

The Devil You Know (Felix Castor #1)

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3.84 of 5 stars 3.84  ·  rating details  ·  5,111 ratings  ·  510 reviews
Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghost buster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle--but there's a risk: Sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a...more
Hardcover, 406 pages
Published July 10th 2007 by Warner Books (first published 2006)
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Stephen
4.0 stars. This book was much better than I had anticipated it to be which was a very pleasant, if UNEXPECTED, SURPRISE.
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I thought this was going to be a decent, but somewhat cheesy Urban Fantasy knock-off of the Dresden Files. While certainly these two series share many basic themes (as most UF does), this was a TERRIFIC READ. In fact, in two very important respects I thought this book was actually SUPERIOR to the Dresden books. Given that the Dresden books are the current “standard” at least...more
Alex

Cover: 3/5
Story: 5/5
Action: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Favorite character(s): Felix, Rafi/Asmodeus, Scrub
Most annoying character(s): Juliet, Gabe, Rich, Damjohn

Loved this book. However, I'll take away 1 star because of the bad ending. Seriously? (view spoiler)[Juliet wants to be his apprentice or whatever??
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4 stars!

This big expert on paranormal phenomena is doing a lecture tour of the UK, and he gets to Aberystwyth on a Friday night. And he goes into the hall, and it's packed. Shuffles his
...more
Lady Danielle aka The Book Huntress
The tone of this novel is bleak, saturnine, and wry. Shades of horror and dark urban fantasy blended into a noir mystery that kept me guessing until the end. I love when a writer is able to pull all the elements together that he introduces to me, from beginning to end. And that's what Mike Carey does here. Tight plotting and subtle characterization. Even the characters that would seem stereotypical have depth and intensity.

Felix Castor gets added to my roster of male lead urban fantasy go-to cha...more
Trin
The first in a new series of novels by Mike Carey, whose Lucifer and Hellblazer runs I really like. The series is set in a world very like ours—except a few years ago, the dead started to come back: as ghosts, as zombies, and as were (possessed and altered animals). Our narrator and guide to this world is the improbably named Felix Castor, an exorcist who's always been able to see dead people and who communes with them through music—his exorcism ritual involves a tin whistle; he's like the Pied...more
Darren
I am Canadian enough, and have enough Latin lingering in my educational detritus, that I read the whole book thinking of the protagonist, Felix Castor, as "the Lucky Beaver".

No doubt a result of reading this alongside Snow Crash, with its everyday avatars.

Felix isn't a very lucky beaver, though. Down on his luck, is closer to the mark; I guess that's why everyone calls him Fix. I tried not to overthink that last...

I enjoyed (the author) Mike Carey's world. All the supernatural entities explaine...more
Ed
May 19, 2012 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2012
About the best urban fantasy I have read, probably ever. Of course I haven't read all that much urban fantasy.
Aldi
[For some reason, full formatting only shows up here. Goodreads' html has defeated me :p]

A little while ago I bought a pack of prawn crackers, expecting, you know, delicious cracky prawny snackness. I tore into the pack in full anticipation of shortly crunching down on a mouthful of yummy processed crustaceans, only to find a bag full of hard little plasticky discs that looked and tasted like casino tokens (if I even actually eat a casino token, I'll make sure to take notes to compare). After a...more
Carol
May 02, 2011 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: urban fantasy lovers, hard-boiled detective fans
Recommended to Carol by: Goodreads, of course
Solid three and a half stars. I'm rounding up in Carey's case, because I think his hero is suffering from comparison to Carey's own Constantine, and Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden. I too thought of Harry Dresden while I was reading, but I found Felix Castor to be more likeable, and the overall story more enjoyable. It is clearly a "first book in a series," meaning that there is a great deal of world building. I felt it was worthwhile, and not excessive to me, but I enjoy a well-thought out world an...more
Mike (the Paladin)
Okay, I picked this up on the strength of a recommendation that if I liked Jim Butcher's Dresden series, I'd probably like these. I can't say that. There is a huge difference in this character, the world he functions in and the overall "feel" of the book. When I say the world is different I'm sure some thought (or said aloud) well of course the world's different, did you expect it to take place in the same world?

No. My meaning there was that the world is a much darker more negative place. "Fix"...more
Karen
Aug 20, 2007 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the masses, as long as they like the supernatural
I'm seriously supposed to write down "what I learned from this book"? (I am not impressed by this review form but as this is my first review I should probably curb my disdain a bit.) Very well then.

What I Learned from This Book: I learned that I very much enjoy books about ghosts and other supernatural creatures that have infested our modern world. I learned that I especially like books of this nature when they are narrated by sardonic and somewhat seedy male narrators who make their livings pe...more
Fantasist
I found this book very disappointing. I have read a number of dresden file books and simply adore them. So it was a shock to find this(also urban fantasy)so drab.

For one the protagonist doesn't have anything to work with. He's supposed to be combating demons and all other sorts of nasties with a tin whistle- yeah that's right- how ummmmm lame.

If that weren't enough the book just kept dragging trying to build a mystery that in the end just doesn't make it worth you while to have kept reading.

The...more
Kasia S.
This was an entertaining read, a detective story that involved solving something other than your usual crimes; this time the supernatural is involved and who better to battle it than Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist with musical talent.

Witty, charming and intelligent, he maps out the grid of the ghosts he's getting rid by playing music on his tin whistle, but this time something else is going on, for once Felix starts to care about why the ghost is haunting the Bonnington Archive, a posh liter...more
Don
This is a tough one to review. See, the book itself isn't that good. It's about a reluctant exorcist who discovers that the ghost he's been hired to exorcise is a murder victim. Fix, the hero, then goes about trying to solve her murder before sending the ghost on. The reader should figure out 90% of the mystery well before the "reveal" of whodunit and why. It's fairly obvious, in fact. That isn't to say there aren't some interesting twists and turns. There are. But the real strength of the novel...more
Stephen Bates
Sometime ago, I was looking through my local library for Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books, couldn't find any, and so had a look at this. I know Mike Carey's name from the Vertigo and X-Men comic books and the write-up on the back sounded interesting. And after the first few pages, I was hooked.

This is a great book and is easily in my list of top books. In a similar vein to Dresden, the main character of this book - Felix Castor - is a freelance exorcist who is hired to remove a ghost from a Lon...more
Sandy
Felix Castor is an exorcist - not of the priestly kind, but one who uses magical means - in a London where ghosts are real. Usually they're tolerated, but when they become bothersome, Felix, or Fix as he's known to his friends, is hired to send them on their way... to wherever that may be. After a bad experience involving a good friend of his, he's trying to back away from his career, but monetary needs force him to take what should be a relatively easy gig at a museum. However, it doesn't turn...more
David Green
This book was a major disappointment :( I’m a huge fan of Mike Carey’s work for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, and I thought he did a masterful job crafting new tales for characters created by Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. So when I heard he was working on a series of novels, I was eager to see what he could do with a world of his own creation. Sadly, the answer turned out to be…not very much.

The premise of following the exploits of an exorcist-for-hire sounds promising, but Carey just doesn’t do eno...more
Stuart
I've read a fair few urban fantasy books over the years. I've even been responsible for a couple. But the Felix Castor series is quite a rare combination of things in that field. It has a male protagonist for one thing, it's set in the UK, and it's also doing proper urban fantasy rather than drifting off onto the edges of paranormal romance as so much of the rest sometimes does.

In Felix Castor, Carey has a hero who might remind some readers of Harry Dresden, in that he's a basically honest, occ...more
That70sheidi
This book is really put together well. I had a hard time putting it down (or on pause, since I was audiobooking it) and I haven't had that problem in a while. I think I narrowed it down to three things that made it so smooth to read.

First, the prose itself. It's not overly complicated but it uses a fair-ranging vocabulary, it's modern (without being vulgar) and with just enough pop culture references that keeps it fresh while not being cloying, and it simply flows well.

Secondly, the humor and w...more
Mary Zimnik
Mike Carey's Felix Castor series is spectacular. He got his start writing marvel Comic graphic novels, including episodes of The Sandman and is an ongoing writer of X-Men. His Felix Castor series was, I think, his first attempt at novels, and I think it was genius all the way around. Castor is a freelance exorcist in a paranormal parallel London, where it's the norm for an exorcist to sorta have a job. Carey's treatment of Castor is, at times, as a smart, effective hard-boiled detective, at othe...more
Tammykirk
I really enjoyed Carey's comic books so expected to enjoy his novels. In this first entry in the Felix Castor series Carey introduces the reader to the richly built world of a slightly futuristic London populated by ghosts and ghostbusters along w/zombies, loup-garou (ghosts that cobble together bodies out of animals), demons and regular people trying to get along in this new world.

The blurbs for this book compare it to Butcher's Dresden files. I think that's just because both have male protagi...more
Traci
had read somewhere (probably in a review) that while Jim Butcher is good, Mike Carey is better; Harry Dresden is entertaining, but Felix "Fix" Castor is the real deal. Well, now I've read books by both authors, books in both series, and I have to say.... I like them both, just in different ways.

Felix is not a wizard, just an exorcist. He uses music, usually provided by a tin whistle (and for reasons I don't entirely fathom, the tin whistle works best and invokes the most fear in the spirits),...more
Bondama
The three books (so far) that Mike Carey has written about the exorcist Felix Castor, the one mentioned above, "The Devil You Know", "Vicious Circle" and the one I've just finished, "Dead Men's Boots" are truly delightful. Apparently, shortly after the year 2000, ghosts have begun to appear. Most ghosts simply "hang around" - some causing trouble. Others become "loup-garous" which are most definitely NOT werewolves. Others become zombies. re-inhabiting their own dead bodies, and wage a constant...more
Brian Steele
After a long stint writing for comic books, Mike Carey gives us his first novel “The Devil You Know.” It's the tale of Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist working in a slightly alternate modern London. Here, ghosts are everywhere, a sign of the times and accepted by all. There are other things as well, all documented and (supposedly) understood; things like zombies, were-creatures and demons. Of an agnostic breed, Castor uses his tin whistle to move the undead on, much like others in his professi...more
Erin
I loved the character Felix Castor. He is the perfect mix of sarcastically witty, doggedly persistent, self-deprecating, and smart. This is the first book in the series, and I also think this character has room to grow.


I love a good ghost story - and this book delivered a great ghost story. Felix is an exorcist, who plays a tune on his trusty tin whistle, a song for a ghost, one that captures and twists their existence into non-existence, like a pied piper of the spirit world. I thought this wa...more
James
I started this book a long time ago, and stopped after the first chapter. At the time it just didn't click, it wasn't what I was looking for and I couldn't get to like it. The main reason was that I was looking for a kick ass, full of magic urban fantasy romp similar to Butcher and Jacka. What this book though is a cross breed of detective noir, paranormal and mystery thriller. There is no superpower, no amazing battles, no vampire/werewolf/monster enemy. It is a paranormal detective mystery. It...more
Melbourne on my mind
I enjoyed this book, really I did. But it seemed like it took a lot of time to actually get to the point. For a book of 470 pages, uncovering the truth, tracking down the perpetrator, and helping the ghost find peace were all crammed into about 70 pages.

Felix Castor is an exorcist in a London where ghosts and demons are common. He gets asked to exorcise a ghost at an archives building, only to discover something more sinister.

Maybe I've blocked it out, but there didn't seem to be much explanat...more
Schnaucl
A few decades ago some of the dead started rising as ghosts. Weres also start to appear, but in Carey's world, weres are animals that are taken over by a strong ghost who then forces the animal into a human shape. There's no explanation for why the dead have started to rise, although, of course, there's the usual suggestion from some quarters that it's the beginning of the end of the world (the theory is mentioned only in passing, not a focus of the book).

Some people can see ghosts but they rema...more
Res
Dec 27, 2012 Res rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: sff
The noir ghost story where a freelance exorcist is called in to get rid of a ghost with only half a face.

The sardonically witty voice won me over immediately ("I took a strong dislike to him right then to save time and effort later") and stayed enjoyable throughout the book.

It's essentially a detective story -- our exorcist's method of working requires him to get to know the spirit a bit, which ultimately leads him into trying to solve the mystery of who she is and why she's there -- but, thou...more
Byron
This book is very much like a more serious version of the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher - which is a problem for me. I am not going to pretend that having read the Dresden Files first and having enjoyed it more did not hinder my enjoyment of The Devil You Know. The fact of the matter is that the book lacked a certain "fun" aspect that the Dresden character has.

In many ways, The Devil You Know is a much more adult book. Its characters are much more realistic since, unlike Butcher's characte...more
Amblingbooks.com
Felix Castor used to cast out demons for a living, and London was his stamping ground. But in a time when the supernatural realm is in upheaval and spilling over into the mundane world of the living, his skills are in renewed demand. With old debts to pay, Castor is left with no choice but to accept one final, well-paying assignment: a seemingly simple exorcism. Trouble is, the more he discovers about the ghost in the archive, the more things refuse to add up--and the more deeply he's dragged in...more
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The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)
The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)
The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)
The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1)
Mój własny diabeł (Felix Castor, #1)

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.

Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storyli...more
More about Mike Carey...
Neverwhere The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity Lucifer, Vol. 1: Devil in the Gateway The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man Ender's Shadow: Command School

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“I took a strong dislike to him right then to save time and effort later.” 19 people liked it
“I could dodge the kick, but the stable door was already down - and I hadn't even realised it until I saw the splinters.” 1 person liked it
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