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Managing Death by Trent Jamieson (view source)
Revision as of 19:43, 29 August 2020
, 19:43, 29 August 2020no edit summary
I reviewed the [[Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson|first book]] in this series and, even although it's not a genre I would normally choose to read, I was pleasantly surprised. Would this second book (which are often difficult to pull off with the same degree of success) be as good or as entertaining? Time to find out ...
I was pleased to read the same breezy, tongue-in-cheek language from Jamieson applied here. It works very well and we are talking fantasy, after all. The reader is given a bit of background of the first book but having said that, both are stand-alone reads. And almost straight away, we're in a world of ''stirrers'' and ''pomps'' amongst other weird and wonderful things (or so Jamieson hopes, I suspect). And so that the reader can fully enjoy the book, there's are various explanations eg: for the term ''stirrers'', well, it's simple really - they would ''devour all living things.''
The location is Australia and for a lot of the time we're in the smart, city offices of Steven's company ''Mortmax Industries.'' Due to previous good work carried out by Steven on the ahem, death front, he finds himself promoted. He's a likable likeable and not particularly ambitious sort of a chap and he's not quite sure how all this promotion lark happened. Nor are some of his work colleagues. I don't think I'm spoiling the story too much when I say that Steven and his team are the good guys but they've got their hands full 24/7 in trying to keep away the bad guys doing well, bad things. Think of ''stirrers'' as stirring up a load of trouble, if you like.
We find out that Steven has various 'gifts' at his disposal but he finds it difficult sometimes to get the procedure right. All sorts of madness and mayhem result. Jamieson happily shares the tiniest details with his readers - he wants us to be involved. Well, I was but only on the surface really. I found this book less engaging than the first one. I got the sense that Jamieson was just trying too hard to be witty and charming and I could feel all that effort in his writing. I also found the plot a bit fuzzy with not a lot happening.