by Peter Darbyshire
COMING SOON from Wolsak & Wynn
October 22, 2024.
Is it Dark Fantasy? Paranormal Noir? A
tantalizing blend of genres named and yet unnamed?
Crisp writing, cynical voice, an ancient wanderer addicted to angelic grace.
And no, that’s not a nickname for some new street drug. Cross - named for the
one his current body died on, once upon a time - has been wandering the world
for 2000 years, killing angels for their grace in order to either further or
forget his eternal hunt for the traitor Judas, depending on the day. Judas,
once realizing g that Cross is resurrecting, hunts him too, always seeking a
means to ensure he stays dead this time.
The classical allusions, which are many, are intelligent but not off-puttingly erudite. They assume some basic familiarity with Judeo-Roman history. Knowing a bit of basic mythology helps too: Roman, Greek, Arthurian… to name a few. But, like Cross leaving bits of his memories in the library with Alice, you may never feel like you have the whole picture.
Cross himself is a bit moody, an inner monologue on legs, and not terribly observant about the world outside his concerns. Jaded, you might say, and why not when he has been alive for most of the past 2000 years, give or take the odd dozen? All you know for a long time is that he learned in a Roman arena how to harvest grace from angels, has hung around with a lot of now famous (and now mostly dead) artists, and likes to support bookstores even when he’s not actively collecting books. Well, and the whole trying to kill Judas thing, which project he has more than one good reason to tackle.
I missed seeing the book when it was first released in 2013 by Chizine Publications under the name of Peter Roman. But it and its successors, The Dead Hamlets and The Apocalypse Ark’ are well in tune with these times that include shows like Lucifer and paranormal crime-solving like the novels by Jim Butcher or Ben Aronovitch. Maybe harkening back to the anti-heroes of classic Noir novels. Less action, more introspection, but definitely in the same deeply readable vein.
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