*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of NETGALLEY arc A Matter of Death and Life – Book 2 of the Gideon Sable series by Simon R. Green #BrainfluffNETGALLEYbookreview #AMatterofDeathandLifebookreview

I’m a fan of Green’s writing. See my reviews of his Ishmael Jones series, featuring an alien dark ops agent and his alluring sidekick, Penny, in Buried Memories, The Dark Side of the Road, Very Important Corpses, Death Shall Come, Into the Thinnest of Air, Murder in the Dark, Till Sudden Death Do Us Part, Night Train to Murder, The House on Widow’s Hill and his paranormal James Bond hero in The Man With the Golden Torc. I also thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this fantasy heist series, The Best Thing You Can Steal – so I was delighted when this offering appeared on the Netgalley dashboard.

BLURB: Judi Rifkin is one of the world’s most successful collectors of the weird and unnatural. In a London underworld filled with criminals with very special talents, Judi is a force to be reckoned with. And Gideon Sable—thief, rogue and chancer—owes her a very large favour.

Judi makes him an offer he can’t refuse: steal her the legendary Masque of Ra, tucked up safe in a Las Vegas casino, and she’ll wipe the slate clean. This isn’t Gideon’s first heist by a long shot. But with old grudges threatening to cloud his judgment, an unpredictable crew who don’t entirely trust each other and a formidable supernatural security team guarding his target, this job might be a gamble too far….

REVIEW: While I’m sure you would better appreciate some of the references about Gideon’s previous adventure if you have had the pleasure of first picking up The Best Thing You Can Steal – it isn’t necessary to thoroughly enjoy this entertaining fantasy heist tale.

Green’s writing is always full of energy and a certain darkness that is frequently alleviated by his humour. But this series dials up the humour and his sense of the fantastic and while there is plenty of tension and action – there wasn’t the underlying grimness that I’ve come to associate with the Ishmael Jones books. Right now, this lighter approach is very welcome as I’m currently reading to escape my own year-long battle with Long Covid – and it was lovely to be able to grin – and in places laugh aloud at the madcap antics of Sable and his band of rogues.

I thoroughly enjoyed Green’s flights of imagination regarding his characters, such as The Damned, Johnny The Wild Card and Annie Anybody – and what an impressive array of magically imbued artefacts can do. Without resorting to parody, or diminishing the story, Green’s cadre of ruffians manage to create mayhem wherever they went. And of course, it’s the deeply unpleasant and viciously bad who ultimately get their just deserts. All in all, this adventure is a delightful escapist read, providing plenty of surprises along with the humour – and my only grizzle is that I wanted it to go on longer. Recommended for fantasy fans who enjoy a dash of humour with their adventure. While I obtained an arc of A Matter of Death and Life from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10