Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Reviews

Book Review: The Dirty Streets of Heaven

By Sandy Amazeen Sep 18, 2012, 2:18 GMT

Bobby Dollar is an angel-a real one. He knows a lot about sin, and not just in his professional capacity as an advocate for souls caught between Heaven and Hell. Bobby\'s wrestling with a few deadly sins of his own-pride, anger, even lust. But his problems aren\'t all his fault. Bobby can\'t entirely trust his heavenly superiors, and he\'s not too sure about any of his fellow earthbound angels either, ...more

Williams sets the hook and reels readers in with his inventive first installment of the Bobby Dollar urban fantasy/noir. Bobby Dollar, known among the heavenly crowd as Doloriel, is a low-level angelic advocate arguing on the of behalf souls of the recently deceased. Like most in his position, Bobby has no recollection of his mortal life and with a taste for booze and the occasional loose woman, can hardly be considered a paragon of angelic behavior. But then, the demon advocates working just as hard to persuade the Principalities Judge to send the souls to hell have their virtues and vices too. When the soul of Bobby’s latest client vanishes without a trace, it sends both heaven and hell into an uproar. Nothing of the sort has ever happened before but for Bobby, things really start going bad when the Prosecutor with whom he’d shared some harsh words is discovered brutally murdered. Now Heaven is seriously considering Bobby’s future as an angel while he struggles to uncover the reason for Hell’s sudden interest in him.

Told from Bobby’s perspective, the dialog is packed with snarky wit, angels, demons and the occasional odd werepig. The world building is incomparable right down to the smallest details like those dreaded television infomercials. The angels and demons do not follow the usual scripts and their interactions are just another part of the entertainment in this excellent tale that is certain to leave readers wanting much more.