Matthew Hughes To Hell and Back. The Damned Busters.

Time for another Angry Robot book. I really wanted this book to be about pilots doing a dam buster job on Hell - I've not seen that novel yet, and I was looking foward to it. The Damned Busters didn't have a single pilot in it, however. I might have to wait for the Damn Busters.

This isn't a long review because The Damned Busters isn't a long book (also, because I'm short on time right now - 3 more weeks of term and then life slows down a little). It may not be a long book, but it's sparkling and fun and somewhat actuarial in tone. I've always thought that one of my sisters would have been happy as an actuary. Now I'm certain of it. Demons and contracts and talk show hosts who fail to get their guests angry on prime time TV. And a Strike. Must not forget the Strike. Or the superheroishness. There is much superheroishness (although no spandex).

An actuary gets involved in the interests of various angelical and demonic beings and has to calculate his way out of it, finding his true love (or not) along the way. It all comes down to an old, old storyline…

This is one of those books where it's possible to say quite clearly "If you like so and so, you'll like such and such." It's very much in the Tom Holt model, humorous fantasy that riffs on matters religious and mythical. Even the underlying themes are similar. This is not a negative comment, by any means. There can never be too many deft and quirky fantasy novels. Reading for wet days. Reading for bad weeks. Reading for messy journeys. Its pace and style aren't quite as good as Holt's, but it's still, as I said, a lot of fun.