Book Reviews and More: Demons - Edwin Torr

Thursday, 1 July 2021

Demons - Edwin Torr - Dead Means Dead Book 1.0

Demons

Dead Means Dead Book 1.0

Edwin Torr

aka J.E. Mayhew

Obolus Books

ISBN 9781999840709

ASIN B073JGYJQM

I picked this up right after finishing, Blood, Bone and Coffin, and know I will read all 8 that are currently available. It is such a fun series. It is the 10th book I have read from the pen of this author. But who is he really? I have read all of his adult crime novels published as J.E. Mayhew. I have read one of his Young Adult collections of short stories as Jon Mayhew. And the first under this pen name of Edwin Torr. Reaching out to the author before reading that one I believe there are 8 stories published under this name and in this series. There are three novels and 5 novella’s or short stories to date. And though this is the second chronologically I believe it was the first published, and written. It is a really fun story in what is proving to be an immensely entertaining series. While reading this instalment, I could not help but think about Cedar Sanderson’s The Groundskeeper Raking Up the Dead and Zombie Death Extreme Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator by Karina Fabian all three authors approaches are very different the stories are somewhat similar and just as enjoyable and memorable.

As stated this story is immensely entertaining. I said before that there was something eerily familiar about Detective Inspector Savage. But I am not sure if from Mayhew’s DCI Blake stories or Alex Smith’s DCI Kett novels. The story focuses around a young man named Tom Coffin; he is a Specialist Funeral Director. His job is to put the undead back in the ground. Coffin’s mode of transport is a car called Persephone, a Jaguar XJ hearse a 1995 model, a vehicle that looks like the offspring of a family station wagon and the Popemobile. The description of this book is:

“A Specialist Funeral Director, a gang of hearse-jacking teenagers, a colony of vampires and a demon just itching to get out of the pit that has imprisoned him for hundreds of years.

Tom Coffin dreams of a normal life sometimes but something always pops up out of the ground to make things interesting. When the beautiful and mysterious Lavinia Peaks appears at his office with the seemingly simple job of putting down her newly-risen husband, Coffin finds himself in a world of intrigue, corruption and a plot to liberate something sinister that has lain trapped deep beneath the ground for centuries. Tom must do battle with his own personal demons as well as face a real, living breathing, infernal creature from Hell. A fast-paced Urban Fantasy set in the dark streets of London.”

As you can see, poor Tom has his hands full. This story is very different than the other short story I have read in the series. But just as entertaining. Tom puts down again a vampire, deals with witches, ghouls, a demon trying to come back to earth, and much more. And maybe just a bit of desire for revenge. I seldom highlight passages of text in fiction books. But ‘Torr’ has a way with words. I have highlighted the beginning of both stories I have read in this series. This one begins with:

“I sighed and tugged at my neck stock, it was hard to look like a respectable funeral director when I was wearing a stab-proof vest and this thing round my throat. Except I wasn’t a respectable Funeral Director was I?”

And further on:

“Rich old widows didn’t tend to call for the services of Thomas Coffin, Specialist Funeral Director. Not unless their rich old husbands had reappeared at the French windows two days after their funerals with fangs and a boner. The neck stock, Kevlar with silver mesh threaded through it, rubbed too. I look like I’m attending my own funeral after crashing my hearse into a brick wall, I thought.”

The story has the right amount of action, supernatural elements, and humour. Greatly entertaining. And very hard to put down. A great first novel in the series. It will leave you hooked, and wanting more.

Books as J.E. Mayhew:

DCI William Blake Series:

0.5 Tyger Tyger

1.0 A Poison Tree

2.0 Fearful Symmetry

3.0 The Bones of the Dead

4.0 Cruelty Has A Human Heart

5.0 All the Lies

6.0 Death's Cold Hand

7.0 No Time For Sorrow

8.0 Dark Visions of Torment

…