I *love* this book and this series. The author somehow captures a real grittiness and perspective that feels like, if these things could be real, this is quite likely how they would actually go down, how they could be explained. Beyond that, there's a great imagination at play in the details and the parentheticals, and the stuff people say to each other. It's great fun.

The series starts off quite chaotically as Matthew Swift literally materializes on his bedroom floor. Or, at least, it used to be his bedroom floor -- but now it's someone else's house (and they're having a dinner party, darn it). He quickly establishes that he's been missing, presumed dead, for about two years. It also doesn't take him long to learn most of his friends and associates are dead or missing, and the ones who aren't all seem to be working for one guy, at one large company. Hmmmm. Time to make some new friends in unusual places -- all with a dry, off-balance, sarcastic sense of humor that is really very funny once you get used to it.

Oh -- and there are a couple of very important catches. One, the guy everyone's working for now used to be Matthew's mentor. And two, Matthew didn't disappear or come back by himself; he's brought someone, or something, back with him. Or did they answer a call and just happen to bring him along for the ride?

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This book seemed a good fit for me since I love urban supernatural, and at least two of my favorite writers (Mike Carey, Ben Aaronovich) have their characters set in London, like this book does. It has a frustrating slow start as the book doesn't quickly explain why Matthew is referring to himself as "we" and all his friends are dead, so he comes across as very alienated and thus unlikable. He quickly finds a new group, and you have to get your mind around warlock vs. magician vs. sorcerer vs. wizard, plus were-creatures, and urban demi-gods. I'm half-way through and it's warming on me, but the start is annoying and it was too easy to put down with such a mysterious and disoriented hero.

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I wouldn't recommend it to a friend, unless they liked rambling descriptions of places, moods and concepts. If you like getting lost in language more than plot, this'll be your sort of book. I almost tossed it aside midway. I think it could have been edited down to half its size, some parts of it so bloated with semi-poetic detail.

That said, some of it brilliant, and while this book took a long time getting forward in the plot, once it did it was quite enjoyable.

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