Oh yeah, now we’re cooking with gas. This is the third book in Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series and they just keep getting better. I had to wait over a week and a half for this book after finishing Kill the Dead and it was killing me. Then one glorious morning I got two packages in the mail: my Max Overdrive Video coffee mug and Aloha from Hell. I was doing the happy dance.
Things in LA are about as normal as they can be after the zombie near-apocaylpse. Allegra has taken over the Doc’s practice, Vidoq does some freelance work for a PI who used to be part of the Golden Vigil and Stark and Kasabian are staying at the Beat Hotel while Max Overdrive is being rebuilt. Stark hasn’t really killed anybody lately, the angel side of him is a real boy scout and he’s getting kinda itchy. Vidoq and Candy persuade him to come on a job for the PI; an exorcism has gone wrong and Hunter, the 19-year-old boy who was possessed is missing. Smoking Maledictions and being as cranky as ever, Stark gets a nasty surprise. Hunter’s brother was TJ, one of the circle that helped Mason send him to Hell. This is personal. When he and the gang (with an excommunicated priest in tow) find Hunter in the ruins of Avila, Mason speaks through him. Fine, I expected that, but what came next threw me for a loop. Mason has dragged Alice down to Hell and imprisoned her. Stark only has one option.
From then on, you’d better just hang on to your hat because this thing ain’t slowing down for no one. Stark knows that he has just got to go Downtown and take care of Mason once and for all. From then on you’d better have some time carved out because you are are not gonna be able to put this book down. I can’t even go into that crazy-ass ending because of the mountain of spoilers but Hell, Heaven and Earth are not going to be the same. I’m gonna fill up that big-ass cup with some Death Wish coffee and start Devil Said Bang. Into the breach!
