The Everything Box

December 14, 2015
Los Angeles already has a reputation as a somewhat otherworldly town, but in the skilled hands of Kadrey (the Sandman Slim series), that description takes on new meaning. Coop, a burglar who specializes in overcoming magical traps and spells, thanks to his natural immunity to them, is just out of jail after a job gone sour. He’s recruited to steal a mysterious box for a well-paying client. Coop is far from the only person after the box; he and his crew must contend with a middle-class doomsday cult, agents from the Department of Peculiar Science, a temporally displaced homicidal stranger, and the angel who lost the box in the first place. Coop soon finds himself in the middle of a shadow war between heaven and Earth, with the biblical apocalypse at stake. Kadrey draws heavily on Gaiman and Pratchett’s classic novel, Good Omens, for inspiration, and in equal measure on Donald Westlake’s caper comedies. Kadrey’s plot doesn’t depend on magic; instead, magic is the broth bringing all manner of delicious ingredients together in this wonderful stew of a story. This unusual urban fantasy is a delight. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown.

November 15, 2015

Not another Sandman Slim novel but the first in a darkly whimsical supernatural tale opening in 22,000 BCE, when an angel loses a device meant to wipe out humanity. (His response? "Crap.") Fast-forward to 2015, when a thief named Coop finds himself in possession of the item. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016

As a thief with a special immunity to magic, Coop is often hired for heists that involve the supernatural. After a job lands him in jail, an old friend offers to set Coop up with a new caper when he's released. It seems simple: steal a box, but don't open it. Unfortunately Coop isn't the only person after the box, with a bumbling doomsday cult, agents from a shadowy government agency, and the angel who lost the box but a few of the players on the board. The fate of the world might very well hang upon who controls the box. VERDICT Heaven and hell (not to mention the grimier corners of L.A.) are familiar territory for Kadrey as seen in his entertaining "Sandman Slim" series. Here the author takes a decidedly more lighthearted approach, creating a must-have for fans of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's comic novel, Good Omens, or those who enjoy the zany situations and amusement of Christopher Moore. [See Prepub Alert, 11/15/15.]--MM

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016
A thief just out of prison is recruited to steal a powerful magical talisman. Kadrey (Killing Pretty, 2015, etc.) takes a break from his popular Sandman Slim series to offer a stand-alone horror-comedy that pulls heavily from all manner of genres and throws in everything but the kitchen sink. The novel opens 4,000 years ago on an angel, Qaphsiel, who's normally in charge of office supplies for the heavenly host but is on a quick mission to Earth when he loses the titular MacGuffin. Back in the present day, Charlie "Coop" Cooper is using his light-fingered talents and a talkative poltergeist to steal some documents when he's busted by the LAPD's Criminal Thaumaturgy squad. After a quick stint in the pokey, Coop hooks back up with his buddy Morty Ramsey, who's been approached with a pricey breaking and entering job that could net them hundreds of thousands of dollars. An enigmatic client named Mr. Babylon wants to hire Coop to steal a family heirloom from a rival, but he has his doubts about Coop's abilities. "I have something you don't, Mr. Babylon," Coop explains. "Another ability. A rare one. I'm immune to magic. Conjury, enchantments, fascinations, mesmerisms, mind reading, and ladies sawed in half. The whole bit." From here, the book explodes into an overstuffed heist movie complete with a band of duplicitous cronies, two bickering agents from the government's Department of Peculiar Science, a hard-traveling murderer cut from the same cloth as Cormac McCarthy's Anton Chigurh, and a pair of inept cults that are mostly around for comic relief. It's all a bit much to take in, and Kadrey offers a lot of stylistic similarities to Gaiman and Pratchett's superior Good Omens (2009). Nevertheless, there's definitely an audience for this kind of madcap supernatural comedy, and it's likely to find those readers pretty handily. A supernatural comic caper that reads like one of the late Donald Westlake's Dortmunder novels sprinkled with some fairy dust.

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April 1, 2016
Coop is a thief who specializes in thaumaturgical snatch and grabs. His cohorts are poltergeists, strongmen, telekinetic lockpickers, and women who can make things invisibleone of whom is his ex-girlfriend. But wait, there's more. Like an angel who was supposed to destroy the Earth after the Flood but botched the job, cops who specialize in peculiar science, gangsters, bumbling demon-worship cults, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and monsters of all ilk, all living in secret in a surreal version of L.A. And it seems that everyone wants Coop to steal them a very special box. The Everything Box is what you would get if Carl Hiaasen and Kinky Friedman had written Good Omens (1990) instead of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. It offers a similar setting of the real world blended with the paranormalcomplete with a looming apocalypsebut the writing has an edgier, racier sense of humor. The story is fast, the twists keep turning, and the resolution is satisfying. This strongly PG-rated, ribald romp is a good set-up for a potential new series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)