The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams (2012)
Exceptional, mostly
Book cover blurb
BOBBY DOLLAR ISN'T YOUR AVERAGE ANGEL.
Sure, he takes the occasional trip to Heaven, but his job as an advocate for the recently deceased keeps him pretty busy on Earth, and he's more than happy to spend the rest of his time propping up the bar with his fellow immortals.
Until the day a soul goes missing.
A new chapter in the war between heaven and hell is about to open…and Bobby is right in the middle of it.
Interested in buying this title?
Click the link to find this book via a favourite online store.
Amazon.co.uk
My Review
Wow, this is one seriously full book! It looks like an ordinary paperback book but I swear there are actually 806 pages, not just 406!
I was looking for an angelic novel, something dark and brooding, it's surprising how few there seem to be out there, when my wife suggested I look into Tad Williams' Bobby Dollar series. After I chuckled a little and asked what the hell that was, I looked it up and instantly felt a little stupid when I realised just how cool the idea sounded. And if Patrick Rothfuss is a big fan then who am I to argue?
I bought the first instalment and after just a few chapters I put in my order for the next two in the trilogy, it was so good.
Anyway, about the book itself. Don't let the page count fool you, this thing is chock full of text, and it really needs to be too, there is so much going on here. Fantastic characters to root for, dislike and be confused by. A very imaginative twist on the path to heaven or hell for the soul of the newly deceased: in this book the decision isn't predetermined, it's 'argued'. Exquisite demonic characters, shadowy figures and even an intelligent hog. The story itself rips along beautifully, for most of the book anyway. I really got a kick out of Bobby, the main character, addressing the reader with comments, quips and alluding to past antics he refuses to discuss.
Usually, I'm not a fan of first-person perspectives, but in this book, I hardly even noticed it, a testament to the rich writing I imagine. I also appreciated the author didn't shy away from answering some awkward questions on how angels and heaven itself work. It would have been easy just to avoid some of those subjects but Tad apparently enjoyed tackling those awkward aspects of angelic existence, and the story felt so much more involving for it.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that soured my enthusiasm just a touch. The last quarter or so floundered a little I thought, as the pace stumbled and it felt like there was some filler, although I couldn't exactly pinpoint it.
The turning point seemed to come about as the love story segment got into full flow, or rather the sex. It was almost like the author had taken a break from writing the book and when he came back to it his mind was in a different place, it just didn't seem like the same world I'd previously been reading about, somehow.
I also have to confess I spent a lot of my time wondering why Tad hadn't simply written a gum-shoe detective story instead of continually hijacking this book with that trope. Don't get me wrong, it does work for the character, it just constantly intruded and detracted from the main themes of the book for me. I actually think, based on this book, if Tad decided to write a gum-shoe detective noir along the lines of those classic Bogart movies, it would be bloody good!
My copy of this novel
Hodder & Stoughton paperback edition.
Published in 2013
406 pages
ISBN 9781444738575