Short Book Reviews: Gideon Sable Returns!

A Matter of Death and Life, by Simon R. Green (Severn House)

Master thief, rogue, and con artist extraordinaire Gideon Sable is back for another supernatural heist, this time stealing an artifact rumored to grant immortality from a Las Vegas casino. In the process, he’ll pay off a very big favor and piss off his enemies. To do this, he pulls together his old crew, including his now-girlfriend, Annie Anybody, the woman who changes her persona as easily as her clothes and who can make electronics fall in love with her; The Damned, who wears invincible armor made of the halos of angels; and Johnny the Wild Card, who has walked the edge of madness so closely he’s on nodding terms with reality at the best of times. Joining them is predictably unreliable Switch It Sally, whose special talent is exchanging objects from a distance, instantaneously and invisibly. But the casino’s owners are definitely Bad Guys, it’s guarded by supernatural goons, and in this universe, nothing is ever as it seems.

I first encountered Gideon and his crew in The Best Thing You Can Steal, and this book is a worthy sequel. Green handles character, tension, and gorgeous if dark imagery so beautifully, his work is a joy to read. Here’s a taste:

“I finally came to a quiet cul-de-sac where the street lamps were remainders of a bygone age. All black iron and ornate stylings their light was so hazy that shadows formed dark pools between the lamps, like sinkholes in the world. The buildings were just dark shapes, with no lights at any of the windows, slumped together like drowsing animals, waiting for their prey to come within reach. Ample warning that this was not an area to be entered lightly, because the phrase ‘urban jungle’ isn’t always a metaphor.

“One photo showed a city where every building had been carved from a single piece of bone, and insects the size of people, or perhaps people who moved like insects, crawled up the outsides of the buildings. Another photo showed a flock of white whales, flying over an endless desert like living dirigibles. In a New York where all the skyscrapers were wrapped in ivy, lizards in smart city suits walked briskly through the financial district. Pterodactyls flapped around a broken Eiffel Tower…”