THE FERRYMAN’S TOLL

This sequel focuses on a hapless civilian caught up in a paranormal agency.

James’ first Hourglass novel introduced readers to ordinary guy and aspiring comic book artist Clyde Williams and his friend Kevin Carpenter. The two hang out regularly despite Kev being dead. The fact that the pals commune so easily brings them to the attention of the clandestine paranormal agency known as Hourglass. They’re both brought onboard as operatives, working alongside agents both lethally trained and superpowered. This new installment of their adventures features the same fevered pitch of pulp prose that made the first book so enjoyable: “A few cautious steps later and Clyde understood why the hub guards were so utterly oblivious to the two intruders marching down on them. They were not bored. They were dead. Grey skinned and white-eyed, blood still dripping from the puddles in their seats.” Robert E. Howard fans will recognize the tone instantly. Like James’ series opener, the sequel centers on the secret war Hourglass is waging against the evil Cairnwood Society, Citadel Security Solutions, and CSS’s dapper, diabolical middle manager, Edward Talbot. Added to the mix is the requisite fantasy “Master,” an evil, nonhuman entity named Charon, and its machinations further complicate an already very pleasingly complex plot. The baleful Eye of Charon lurks in the background of the tale’s expanded action, watching over plot threads and characters (the most memorable of whom eerily earns her name “Doll Face”) that range far afield from Clyde and Kev.

The sheer zest of the storytelling here is infectious. James has mastered the knack of meshing the fast-paced lingo of paramilitary thrillers with the colorful worldbuilding of urban fantasy. It’s the same combination found in books like Larry Correia’s popular Monster Hunter series and the novels of Simon Green, and it works to extremely readable effect in these pages as Clyde, Kev, and their Hourglass allies continue to face off against Cairnwood and its minions. This is the kind of SF/fantasy where internet encryptions and Glock 19s show up right alongside hexes and undead monsters (sometimes merging, as in “low-grade demonic radiation” and the like). Virtually all of the players in some way live on the borderline between those two realities. “Being a practical man, one of sound reasoning, science, and logic,” one such character thinks while standing in the middle of a literally haunted dungeon, he “never used to believe in fluffy matters such as souls and dark forces, but now, every time he shivered down in this dank hellhole he couldn’t help but wonder if it was the cause of ghosts brushing his shoulder.” This and similar passages highlight the volume’s only recurrent flaw: the author’s tendency to get tangled up in his own verbiage. But this defect is minor compared to the story’s many strengths: the sharply drawn characters, the frequency with which the jokes land, and, most of all, the roller-coaster pacing, which keeps the whole supernatural business hurtling to a gripping conclusion. Fans of urban fantasy should jump on this series at its beginning.

A fast-paced, richly imagined, gritty tale of modern-day good versus evil.