THE MURDERED METATRON, by James Glass

THE MURDERED METATRON, by James Glass, is such a fun read. Wonderful entertainment that's witty, intelligent, filled with interesting characters, and has a heart, too. Amnesiac John Smith begins a whole new life as a gumshoe, and is hired by two demons, Paul Azuzu and Lucien Marduk, to find a man named Virgil Callahan. And that's when the fun begins. I can't really say too much without giving anything away, but I'll give you a bit of a tease here: when Smith finally locates Callahan, the story takes a brief turn into Phillip K. Dick territory. Ah, but then I was sideswiped into another twist when developments unfolded, going back to pre-WWI, Aleister Crowley, the occult, and the invocation of angels and demons, and how that all went so terribly wrong. The story takes another sharp turn to the left, and then another to the right as scenes I would not have expected to read came into play. I was pleasantly surprised by how James Glass worked the various elements of this story into a very entertaining blend of great dialogue, hilarious moments, a shadow or two of horror, a little violence, and an ending that left me eager to read the follow-up book, "The Dispossessed," coming this February 2014. Glass has captured me with this special witch's brew of humor, horror, pulp fiction in the vein of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and the film noir genre, creating something quite original. Bravo!