When I read Williams’ first novel about Inspector Chen, Snake Agent, I wasn’t entirely satisfied; it was OK, but I wasn’t sure I’d try the next one. Julie from Happy Catholic noted in a comment that she thought the next book was better, so I decided to give it a try. And it is somewhat better.

I described the premise of the series in the first review, so I won’t repeat that here. The emphasis shifts in this book from Inspector Chen himself to his new partner, the demon Zhu Irzh, who is finding life outside of Hell to be both fascinating and a bit of a slog. It seems that human girls find him too scary to cope with, and so he’s getting just horribly frustrated, sexually, poor thing. I found this whole line of development tedious, even if it’s reasonable in context. I can hardly expect a demon from (a decidedly non-Judeo-Christian) Hell to be either inhibited or temperate when it comes to sex, but that doesn’t mean that I want to read about it.

I don’t have much more to say about the book itself, though I note a pattern developing, in that once again I liked the second half of the book a lot more than the first half. The first half was tedious and a little icky; and then Zhu Irzh finds a girlfriend about halfway through which means that he can stop obsessing about his lack of a sex-life. This can only be a good thing.

I observe from Liz William’s bio at the back of the book that she is co-proprietor of a witchcraft supply shop. I confess I find this troubling, and so I want to be very cautious about recommending her books; I don’t want to encourage interest in witchcraft. That said, the novels do not appear to have an axe to grind in this area, so your mileage may vary.

Bottom line: I was entertained, and somewhat conflicted.