Review: In Death's Shadow by Kal Spriggs

[easyazon_link identifier="B086H38JW7" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]Kal Spriggs' In Death's Shadow[/easyazon_link] is everything you probably want in a novel: there's humor, there's action, there's an epic showdown between good an evil, there's compelling lore, and characters you like.

I know, I was surprised as well. I don't know Kal offhand. I don't even recall how I ended up with a review copy of the book. However, I did make sure to go out of my way to buy both it and the sequel when they came out in hard copy, just so I had something to share around my friends and family.

Deal alert: On the date of this review, In Death's Shadow is only $0.99 on Kindle!

The story

When fighting in the Sandbox, Ari had a rough time. The night of the werewolves was no picnic. By the time the battle was over, Ari had a new friend, his guardian angel, "Sam." Except Sam is a retasked grim reaper, and his ideas of protecting Ari can get ... messy. It's getting so bad, the cops think that Ari is a serial killer. But when the werewolves come back to finish what they started, Ari is going to need more than an Angel of Death to survive the battle to come. Overall? The book is so much fun I didn't put it down from the moment I picked it up. As of this minute, I'm glad book two has finally come out. Kal Spriggs brings a lot of wonderful little touches to his writing style. He has one of the better opening lines I've seen since "the building was on fire and it was not my fault." The writing style is smooth, with off-hand casual descriptions and backstory feels effortless -- largely executed with nice sharp background notes that leave a nice little sting and then continues with the rest of the story ... But boy, does the reader feel these little touches. There is also a lot of casual with how Sam (our Guardian Reaper) chooses to protect our hero — but Kal never resorts to a Rube Goldberg mechanic to describe them. In terms of little touches, there are lines like "I'd managed to avoid ruining this set of clothing with blood at least." It's the little things that make this book stand out. We have great action, dark humor, easily executed backstory that is all relevant to the plot, along with some great world-building at a pace Mickey Spillane would have loved.

The characters

I cannot spell out just how much I love these characters. Ari is sympathetic and an utter badass. Sam is entertaining in a dark way. Even with a grim reaper playing guardian angel, I appreciate how Kal has avoided making our hero utterly indestructible despite giving him a guardian angel who is akin to a weapon of mass destruction. I even enjoyed the execution of the premise--down to showing us the point of view of how this reaper operates within his rules and regulations.  And no, even though Sam is very thorough about his job, he never turns into a deus ex machina. Never. That's freaking impressive. And I can't stress enough how much the humor and the little touches struck me. Kal even manages to have to make use of the old canard

"Do you have plans for the day?" "No, I can't make plans, then they can throw around words like premeditation."

I've been waiting for someone to use that in a novel for years. He just slid it in like a nice stiletto and moved on. I want to touch on multiple characters, but I honestly don't want to spoil too much of the book. But even the legions of the damned have personality, backstory, and motivations that are effortlessly spelled out. And they're still evil enough you want to see them die screaming.

The world

This book has so many fun entertaining elements to it, it is hard to know where exactly to begin.

• You have Metallurgy on bullets that I have not seen since the first Monster Hunter novel.

• It brings in Creative elements that would make Jim Butcher want to take notes.

• And frankly I also believe that there is a Quantum Leap reference just thrown in for good measure. (I try to remember back to Quantum Leap to recall if Sam was Dean Stockwell or Scott Bakula)

There are several elements that almost feel like nods to other genre novels. For example one could be forgiven for thinking that Harry dresden's werewolf / Terminator scene is slipped in this one, or having supernatural beasties encountered in Afghanistan feels a little bit like Monster Hunter International. And again, little touches like casually mentioning a werewolf and "how thermite grenades work wonders." I even like the little bit about how Sam really enjoys he 24 hour news cycle as "like an athlete staying up on sports news". (Also, Sam's commentary on CNN is beautiful.) I will also admit to highly enjoying Kal's version of werewolf mythology and lore. He does some nice variations that I personally have never seen before. And he comes up with perfect reasons and rationale for werewolves to be 100% pure evil all the time. After all, one of the enemies is literally a soul sucking werewolf from Hell. As I said above, some of the metallurgy is so good, I intend to steal some of it. Including silver and mercury arounds, as well as electrum. And werewolves .... are some of the lesser problems our hero will have to deal with. Because on top of a awesome first novel, Kal has effortlessly set up a sequel without any actual sequel baiting. There is no Empire Strikes Back level BS. There is no "to be continued." And there is only an ending that would have worked perfectly well with the final line of a comic book movie. I mean a good one. Spriggs is such a good author that it was nearly halfway through the book before I realized how many tropes and clichés that Kal had made good use of.... but without any of them feeling at all like clichés or tropes. Ari has a a dead fiancée (doesn't everyone?), memory loss before a certain age (hello Wolverine), et al. But these are the best use of tropes, where you don't even notice them unless you're a neurotic book reviewer who also writes novels (Hello). Honestly, Kal's use of tropes feels more like the sort of mash up that brought us something as brilliant as [easyazon_link identifier="0441015476" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]Jim Butcher's Codex Alera novels[/easyazon_link]. At the end, we even get a little of the "hero of the borrowed heart." If you don't get that reference, don't worry. Great lines of dialogue include

"Are demons common in Detroit?" "Clearly you haven't been to Detroit lately."

Okay, that might be too easy. How about:

"Angels are the police of the Supernatural world" "What does that make Sam?" "Designated sniper."

The politics

This is right-wing in the same way Die Hard is right-wing: there are bad guys who need to be stopped, and sometimes law enforcements just isn't the right tool. There is a Heaven. There is a Hell. And both of them have soldiers on the Earth. There is evil in the world, and it needs to be shot in the face ... a lot. Guns are your friend. So are thermite grenades. If you have to see politics in everything, this is a right-wing action novel with some interesting religious elements. If you just want a fun novel on par with Jim Butcher or Larry Correia, you should be reading this book.

Content warning

There is violence. If there is a lot of cussing, I didn't notice at the time. But yikes, is there blood. Werewolves are messy to kill, even if you're just shooting them. This doesn't even count all the things Sam does to people ... and things.

Who is it for?

For fans of Jim Butcher, Larry Correia, Daniel Humphreys... or heck, even fans of Declan Finn. Do you have a dark sense of humor? Read this book. Do you like that monsters are part of the forces of Hell and can be fought off with lots of artillery? This book is for you.

Why read it?

[easyazon_link identifier="B086H38JW7" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]Great world building, amazing characters, filled with dark humor while blasting infernal werewolves with heavy weaponry: what's not to love?[/easyazon_link]