Life is hard when you’re The Devil. It’s all work, work, work. How is poor old Satan supposed to get a break?
The Devil is in desperate need of a holiday and he thinks he has the perfect plan to get some time off. He has decided to go legitimate and set up an earthly centre of operations in Edinburgh, using the catchy name Hellcorp.
Hellcorp will provide humankind with the ideal corporate-based opportunity to achieve their wildest hopes and dreams, without The Devil himself having to be around 24/7 - all for the bargain price of their souls! And he has managed to get The Vatican to pay for it too. Ingenious!
The only fly in the ointment is that Him upstairs requires Old Nick to perform a service for Him, before he is allowed some time off. The Devil must solve the murder of an elderly Glaswegian - except the man has only just died and the act that led to his death took place 40 years ago.
This is going to be a tough one to pull off, but our cosmic bad guy is nothing if not resourceful, and he really wants that holiday.
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Hellcorp is a darkly comic crime tale that will keep you entertained from cover to cover.
The Devil finds himself at a bit of a loss as he tries to get the hang of controlling his less than ideal human body, while trying to investigate the death of an elderly man - with the assistance of a somewhat love-lorne female doctor, by the name of Gideon (pun intended), who has been selected as the ideal partner by Him Upstairs to aid The Devil in his adventure.
The Devil would most certainly disagree with His assessment, but beggars can't be choosers and Gideon definitely proves useful for all those pesky injuries a human body can accrue in a city like Glasgow - especially when the occupant of this particular human body doesn't know when to apply the adage "discretion is the better part of valour".
As it turns out, Gideon is much more involved in this story than she realises, and her past is about to come back and hit her most unexpectedly in the mush - much to the surprise of both her and Satan.
It is hard to talk much about this story without giving away spoliers, but surfice to say that this story proves to be a completely comic caper of two seemingly unsuitable investigators who constantly rub each other up the wrong way, through the streets of Glasgow - and a very interesting look into the habits of both The Devil and Him Upstairs!
This book is pitched at fans of Christopher Fowler and Ben Aranovitch, but I have sadly not read any of their books (yet!), so cannot confirm the similarities. However, I am a firm fan of Neil Gaiman and can definitely say that if you like his brand of humour then Jonathan Whitelaw will certainly be for you too.
I thoroughly enjoyed Hellcorp, and am looking forward hugely to the next installment of The Devil's adventures in The Man In The Dark, which is publishing very soon!
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