I read the first of this series "A Kiss Before The Apocalypse" back in 2011. I loved the graphic novel feel of the plot: Remy Chandler, a Seraphim who walked away from Heaven after the war between the angels, has lived for millennia on Earth in human form but has only recently found and married the love of life, now has to risk everything to save the world from the apocalypse. It doesn't get better than that. Except, actually, it does because he has a labrador called Marlowe that he can communicate with.

At the end of the book, my only regret was that I didn't know more about Remy's backstory with his wife and that the cover art was appalling.

I came back to the series this year, with "Dancing On The Head Of A Pin", this time in audiobook format.

The good news is: there's a lot of back story on Remy's relationship with his wife, his dog and his best human friend and it's all well written (although very sad) and Luke Daniels does a great job of the narration.

The bad news is that the cover art is still awful.

This book retains the graphic novel feel and mostly does very well with it. The violence is graphic and frequent from the almost the first page onwards. If this was a graphic novel, there would be blood and gore and body-parts everywhere. I thought some of the fight scenes went on for too long and the angel on angel confrontations were hard to get engaged with.

I loved the parts with Marlowe and also with the Rottweilers guarding one of the buildings Remy visits.

I enjoyed the book enough to look for the next in the series. Then I found that none of the series are available in audiobook format in Europe anymore - including "Dancing On The Head Of A Pin". This mirrors what's happened with the Kitty Norville books. I can only get them in Europe as CDs. This is beginning to annoy me.

What is audible.com up to? It's time they joined the twenty-first century and found a way around nineteenth century copyright agreements. If that means paying a premium the way I used to on imported books and records in the last century, I could put up with the for a while, but Amazon have made audible the fastest growing audiobook platform in the world, so I don't understand why they aren't taking a more global view. ( )

A follow up novel featuring Seraphim-in-disguise Remy Chandler, fresh from the battle at the end of the first novel. Remy is hired to find a cache of ancient weapons stolen from a rich owner, and finds out the weapons were forged in Heaven to aid Lucifer Morningstar. This eventually brings Remy into Hell itself. This book was darker than the first, and resulted in one character that I liked biting the dust. But Marlowe's still good, and I liked how the book ended on a hopeful note with Remy meeting a new woman. Makes me look forward to the next book. Three and a half stars. ( )

Still mourning his wife's death, fallen angel and private investigator of supernatural events, Remy Chandler, has been hired by a collector of antique weapons to recover five weapons of unimaginable power recently stolen from his collection. Remy shortly learns that others are also seeking these weapons, which if obtained first, could result in the freeing of Lucifer from Hell.

I picked up this audio book, the second in a series, just to have something to listen to in the car. Although generally not my cup of tea I did enjoy the narration and Remy's Boston accent. I also enjoyed the voice given to Remy's pet, a black Labrador named Marlow. The interaction between the two of them was hilarious.
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I had gotten about halfway through this book several months ago and then forgot to pull it out of my travel bag to finish. Once I started packing for my next trip I saw the news that NBC picked this to shoot a pilot and now I want to read all of them. This book is several months after the first one and Remy is still grieving for his wife. He gets a case looking for some missing weapons and it turns out that the weapons are very special. Of course the fallen angels want them and so do the Nomads. The end goal again in this book seems to be trying to prevent events from reigniting the war between God and Lucifer and it doesn't look good by the end of the book. Looks like I will need to pick up the pace reading them.
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Remy Chandler is recovering from the death of his wife and wondering at his place in the world – if he even has a place in the world. Especially since the Thrones have offered him a place back in heaven.

But the world doesn’t stop for a grieving angel. Several weapons have gone missing – weapons from every stage in history, each the very epitome of their kind and craftsmanship. They are the pitiless and they have power far beyond being devastating tools of destruction.

And other people certainly want them - not least of which the Denizens, fallen angels who have returned to Earth from Hell to live out the rest of their penance and seek redemption. They’ve absorbed the forces of Hell and aren’t seeking a path back to Heaven – but revel in the corruption of mortals around them.

But the Pitiless contain power even they don’t know – and are part of a scheme that can rock Heaven itself to its core.

I do have an issue with the pacing of the book. It takes a long time for the book to get going and a long time to set the actual plot and premise up. We spend a lot of time with Remy’s emotions and dealing with his wife’s death and considering his place in the world – and whether he truly wants to remain with humanity or re-ascend to heaven. There follows a series of side-characters he deals with to find the pitiless who serve no real purpose at all. I’m not sure why the Denizens were there or what purpose they served or the semi-human purveyors of stolen goods. They seemed almost place holders that could have been equally filled by anyone else. They felt like fillers, interactions with them felt unnecessary and all it really did was mean Remy didn’t have to do any real investigating.

The contrast is that once he does get his hands on the actual Pitiless, it’s run and keep up, no sprint and keep up with action left right and centre, passing into hell, fighting through Tartarus against hellions, against the fallen and we’re up to our eyeballs in gore, scary feelings and big rebellious falling angels.

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