Managing death

We pick up the story from the end of the first novel. Steven de Selby is the newly appointed (if that's the right word) Death for the Australian region.

He's put off a regional apocalypse but Mortmax Australia is in a bit of a shambles, and so is de Selby. The Stirrer god is coming, Steve is hitting the bottle, testing the strength of his relationship with his newly resurrected girlfriend and despite having the powers of a Regional Manager someone is still trying to kill him.

Not to mention he's trying to organise a Death Moot.


What I liked
This book is perfectly paced and as good an execution of a second book as as your likely to find. You could read this book without having read Death most Definite, or indeed if you can't quite remember what happened(I read them within a week of each other). It can become tiresome when an author has to recount the story of the first or preceding book, but Jamieson manages well the weaving of major action and plot points of the first novel into the telling of this tale.

Managing Death also gives us more information of the workings of the Orcus and the Mechanics of the Underworld. Jameison's vision is distinctly refreshing while having solid ties to the familiar cultural mythology surrounding Death and the Underworld.

There is a lot more action in Managing Death and it slips further away from black humor and urban fantasy and into horror. I think by the final book it will be mayhem and death with a capital D.

Final thoughts
If you liked or enjoyed Death most Definite, I think you would be doing yourself a disserice not to read Managing Death. The humor is diminished and we can begin to feel the ominous approach of a climactic battle in the final book but it's still the reluctant hero de Selby, handling things in a uniquely Australian fashion.

This book was supplied at no cost to myself by Orbit Australia.