I really wanted to like this book. I like the Urban Fantasy genre, I'm an avid Dresden/Butcher fan, and I quite like Mike Carey's books. I like books dark and gritty in all genres. So, Sandman Slim should have been a good match.
But no.
The main character just fell flat for me. Kadrey tried too hard to tell us about how hardcore Stark is. And that's precisely the problem. It's mostly all tell, but not show. You want show? Read some Erikson. Or Donaldson, for Pete's sake. That's dark an gritty, all through show. Stark is tell and nothing but tell.
Over and over we hear about his smoking cigarettes, drinking scotch, having escaped from hell. But I can't feel it. Nothing shows that he is bad-ass. Even The Acts of Caine do a better job with the showing.

It felt very cliché as well. Again the dark brooding mage/magician. Well, that's a requirement for the fantasy noir genre. But again the cops, the bar(tender), the feisty vampire chick, the kicking against the angels because it's cool. I don't know. Those tropes could have been tackled a lót better. Kadreys just failed miserably.

Gods know I didn't like the first Dresden book exclusively for the writing, because ... well Stormfront isn't really a masterpiece. But I was told that it would get better after book three, and those first books were entertaining and humorous and fún to read. A lot show, not much tell, too.
Maybe Kadrey gets better after some books. I will give book 2 a try.
Maybe it's the narrator. The Dresden Files are what they are to me because of the stellar performance by James Marsters. Without him, they are a lot less enjoyable (see book 13). So maybe that's part of the problem ;-)
I don't know.
This book didn't work for me.