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    Secondhand Souls: A Novel
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    Secondhand Souls: A Novel
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    Secondhand Souls: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Secondhand Souls: A Novel

    Written by Christopher Moore

    Narrated by Fisher Stevens

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job.

    Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall “meat puppet” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.

    To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateAug 25, 2015
    ISBN9780062374103
    Unavailable
    Secondhand Souls: A Novel
    Author

    Christopher Moore

    Christopher Moore is the author of eighteen previous novels, including Razzmatazz, Shakespeare for Squirrels, Noir, Secondhand Souls, Sacré Bleu, Fool, and Lamb. He lives in San Francisco, California.

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    Reviews for Secondhand Souls

    4.5/5

    163 ratings56 reviews

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    • 4/5
      DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU READ BOOK 1 FIRST...like i didn't. (Good luck deciphering that triple negative.)Kind of dumb, I grabbed this at the bookstore when it came out because I love Christopher Moore but didn't realize it was the second book in a series. So while there are many hilarious moments in this book, there is also a lot of convoluted backstory that would have been much easier to follow had I read A Dirty Job.Even so, I quite enjoyed it. No one can do paranormal comedy like Moore. His humor tends to be character based (snarky females are a forte) and through the juxtaposition of the supernatural with the mundane (a banshee with a taser). In a word: camp.The plot involves some eating of souls, reincarnated baddies, demon dogs, a 14" tall alligator-headed duck-foot meat creature with a foot long dong, and assorted other absurd characters. It's a blast. If you read the first one, even better. I'm sure. I'll know better next time.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Wild, funny and enjoyable. Didn’t read the first book Dirty Job but recommend reading the 1st one before this one-a lot to take in?
    • 4/5
      Christopher Moore is one of the most popular authors at the bookstore where I worked, and for a good reason. This sequel to A Dirty Job does not disappoint. Although not as good as the first, the story and the story teller are a joy to read. Definitely a keeper!!
    • 5/5
      I just love these books. I hope there will be more.
    • 3/5
      A decent follow up to Dirty Job that has some funny moments but just didn't have me chuckling as much as the first book. While the the plot had some interesting ideas I just felt that they didn't mesh together as well as they could. In addition while the ghost story parts were kind of interesting they felt more like filler as they really didn't add anything to the story. Also some of the subplot kind of just fizzled out with not much happening. Overall its a decent read if you like Christopher Moore but i don't think its one of his best works
    • 4/5
      After staring at the wall for thirty minutes, I still don't know how to approach this review. I'm just winging it so be patient with me. The story is pretty straightforward and the pace is quick, but not rushed. The crazy characters from Dirty Jobs are back along with Moore's unique comedy style...which is so bizarre that I just can't wrap the logical part of my brain around it. Maybe that's my problem. Logical comedy. Is comedy logical? Probably not. Christopher Moore is either a genius or an escaped mental patient. Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that I laughed all day and this book blew my mind. Seriously, I think I hurt something. My advice to you should you pick up this series: Definitely listen to the audiobook. Absolutely fabulous narration! Also, I blushed more than once over the language, body humor, etc., so be aware if you're sensitive to that sort of thing. Enjoy!
    • 3/5
      Fantasy stories are always a bit weird. That's part of the definition of the genre, right? This one's weirder than most. It's a contemporary fantasy, not an epic one, set in modern San Francisco with a cast of extremely odd characters...odd even for California. They include a hot Buddhist nun, several people who collect souls of the recently departed, a couple incarnations of Egyptian gods, and a guy who is currently living as a racoon-sized patchwork creation with a crocodile head and...other outsize body parts best left unmentioned in polite reviews. His seven-year-old daughter may be Death (with a big D). Oh, and there are ghosts and sundry others. Like I said, odd characters. Obviously, this is comic fantasy. It's crude but not obscene; silly but not stupid. Approached in the right state of mind, it's quite funny.
    • 4/5
      Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Also, IT GLOWS IN THE DARK so don't be freaked out :)I think the most important bit of info to pass on about this book is that you will enjoy it more if you read (or re-read) Dirty Job first. It works as a stand-alone, but you'll enjoy it so much more if you have the back story.The second important bit of information, if you are new to Christopher Moore, is that if you are really uptight about religion, you should probably pass his work by. He hilariously skewers religious tropes of all flavors, and if you can't laugh about that, um....that's a problem.Having made those caveats:I liked this book, and definitely laughed out loud often while reading it. It alternates between creepy and funny in turns, and was a fun read. The only really criticism I have is that I think the author struggled a bit with portraying black folks. Some of the dialog/situations kind of falls flat there.
    • 4/5
      A great follow-up to A Dirty Job. The one thing I love about Moore's books is the feeling of dread and urgency that he very clearly conveys. I feel if I put the book down, hell will literally break loose.
    • 4/5
      Moore is a really funny writer, and I always enjoy his books, but I don't think this is one of his best works. I don't think it's bad, just not his best.This book is a sequel to A Dirty Job. It's been long enough since I read that one that the references to it left me a bit confused. I suspect that someone who hadn't read A Dirty Job first wouldn't know what was going on. My other problem is that there are too many major characters. The book has about half a dozen characters whose viewpoint it alternates between. This would be a good number for a 1000 page epic fantasy novel, but makes a 350 page humorous fantasy novel seem to lack focus.That said the book is still hilarious, and I had a hard time putting it down. Also, the cover glows in the dark, which is cool.
    • 5/5
      I have enjoyed everything I've read by the author. But why is book one of this series not available in audio ??? Narration is excellent too.
    • 4/5
      This book is wacky and zany. Sometimes it was so surreal that it was a bit hard to follow in the middle, but all that got straightened out in the last third as the book barreled along towards its very sweet ending. (Confession: I skipped the entire story of the ghost who played baseball, why is that there?) If you liked the first book (A Dirty Job), this followup is for you. Reading this book, you could ponder what it means to be human, to be alive, to have family... or you could bust a gut chuckling.
    • 3/5
      It was okay, but not what I wanted. I didn't want to read about Charlie, I wanted to read about Sophie, but instead she was mostly kept offstage.

      Library copy
    • 4/5
      I've read almost all of Christopher Moore's books and almost always look forward to the next. Moore is always very funny, and at his best — in Sacre Bleu, for instance, or Lamb — he writes wonderful characters, tells marvelous stories, and at times has some really worthwhile things to say about what it means to be human. But only the mediocre, the cliche says, are always at their best, and Moore is by no means mediocre. When he's not at his best, he's still funny, still entertaining, still worth spending a couple hours with, but doesn't leave as satisfying an impression. (Hence those "almosts" in the first sentence — I haven't yet read one book that was a sequel to one I liked less than most.)Secondhand Souls is a sequel to one of my very favorite Moore books, A Dirty Job. That book took an intriguingly off the wall concept as the foundation for a story about Charlie Asher, a beta male second hand store owner who on one fateful day loses a wife, gains a daughter, and becomes an assistant Death who collects souls and passes them on to their next bodies. It's a story that bounces between tragic, sad, romantic, horrific, and hysterically funny. Along the way the admittedly rather white-bread protagonist Charlie is assisted by a wonderful cast of supporting players — some new here, some reappearing from other Moore novels — including the seven foot tall used music store owner Minty Fresh, and the teen goth store clerk Lily, one of Moore's best and funniest creations. And even the story's antagonists, the supernatural sewer harpies, are great fun to read.Loving A Dirty Job as much as I did, I was delighted to learn that Moore would revisit that story in Secondhand Souls. Unfortunately, though, the sequel doesn't live up to the original. Partly I think that's because, where A Dirty Job focuses on Charlie — someone whose personal situation we're led to care a lot about — with Lily as a major supporting character, in Secondhand Souls Charlie and Lily are pretty much just two members of an ensemble cast; the result is something of a diminished sense of focus. And Lily has grown out of her teenage angst, but greater maturity has left her a little less interesting. There's also less focus in the plot. While the nature of the threat Charlie faces in A Dirty Job is made pretty clear early on, in Secondhand Souls the characters and the readers are left in the dark about much of what they're up against until well past mid-volume. But because of that, the story seems less compelling.Being a sequel, you'd expect the characters, plot, and themes to be somewhat familiar. They are, I think to a fault. There are essentially no new major characters, none in the original cast's league anyway, nor any major development of the old characters, and while the book chronicles a new order in the disposition of souls, the ideas there are less engaging than the first time around.So it's a fun, entertaining read, but not up to the level of its predecessor. Moore fans will want to read it, by all means, but we'll just have to hope the author's back in top tier form the next time around.
    • 4/5
      I read Secondhand Souls immediately after rereading A Dirty Job and found myself a little disappointed with the sequel. Oh, it's no less funny than the first book, but the rules of the world that had been established were mostly tossed out for no apparent reason. Still, Secondhand Souls is a good read as long as you don't think to hard about it.
    • 4/5
      This is a solid sequel to A Dirty Job - I would recommend reading that first, as you'll miss a lot of key details if you started with Secondhand Souls. Once again Charlie and the gang must save the city of San Francisco from the dark forces of the underworld. As usual, Moore's humor is a little dark and a lot raunchy - this book in particular has several dick-related scenes and jokes (though not in a porny way). Moore even uses the word "peen," which I got a kick out of. I think though, that Moore tried to cram in too many characters and storylines, so the book felt overcrowded and a little rushed. Not his best work, but still an excellent book and a much-awaited sequel.
    • 5/5
      When I won Secondhand Souls through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program, I had not read the first book, A Dirty Job. My county's online library catalog and its 'hold' function took care of that problem. So, is the sequel as funny as the original? I think so.The prologue consists of selected rules from the first edition of the Great Big Book of Death, the handbook for soul collectors (also known as 'Death Merchants'). Why the first edition? It's quite possible that not all of the Death Merchants who were killed in the first book have been replaced. Some of the DMs haven't been doing their job (although one of them has pretty good excuse).One of the DM slackers is Inspector Alphonse Rivera, the homicide detective who got introduced to the supernatural the last time. Try to imagine his feelings when he discovers his handbook has been revised. Loved his introduction to a new secondary character, the Bean Sidhe, more familiarly known as the Banshee. (Loved her introduction to modern technology).Charlie Asher, Beta male, DM, and father of Sophie, the Luminatus (Great Death), starts out where he left off -- his soul stuck in one of Buddhist ex-nun Audrey's meat-animal-parts-bone constructs. I liked Mr. Moore's solution to the problem. I also liked his solution for keeping Sophie from being a Deus ex Machina. The book would have had to have been much shorter without it. Yes, Audrey's 'Squirrel People' (or the People of the Squirrel, or just the People, as Charlie and Audrey are snootily informed by Bob the Beefeater) are also back. Beware the one they call 'Theeb the Wise'. I have to agree with the universe's opinion of him (see chapter 29). More secondary characters from the first book who appear again, even if only for a cameo: Lily Severo, Minty Fresh, Jane Asher and her wife, Cassie; Mrs. Ling, Mrs. Korjev, Detective Inspector Nick Cavuto, Ray Macy, Carrie Lang, Abby Normal, the Emperor of San Francisco, Babd, Macha, and Nemain.More Death deities and another new Death Merchant are introduced. The main villain of the sequel is more intelligent, elegant, and deadly than that winged and horned jerk Orcus who was with the Morrigan in the first book. We even get to have ghosts! (There's also a Ghost Thief our heroes get to worry about finding.) I liked the collective noun used for ghosts in chapter 6.Besides being very funny, Secondhand Souls works as a paranormal mystery. Not everyone survives, but I think most fans of A Dirty Job will be satisfied where the characters who do are left.Notes: According to the acknowledgements, the romance of Concepción Argüella and Count Nikolai Rezanov told in chapter 6 was real. You might wish to look it up.See chapter 7 for the amusing Spanish name of an Irish nun at Sophie's school. (I had to look up 'encima'. It was worth it.)See chapter 8 for the 'Friends of Dorothy' story as well as how ghosts usually communicate with each other.See chapter 12 for Audrey's explanation for what was supposed to happen with the terra-cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.See chapter 29 for how Mrs. Ling was able to accept seeing a 'lucky dragon'. Cat lovers: We'll have to content ourselves with a charming cat-headed Squirrel person.Dog lovers: We may rejoice in that Alvin, Bummer, Lazarus, and Mohammed all make return appearances!
    • 4/5
      hristopher Moore is pretty much crazy and unrepentant. Forget being a fly on the wall, I'd love to spend the day inhabiting his brain because I don't think there's ever a boring minute in it. I first started reading Moore's novels many years ago now when my book club was looking for a non-sentimental Christmas read (hello The Stupidest Angel). Intrigued by his wonderfully warped view on things, we later moved on to his hilariously irreverent novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. I've since moved so I have no idea if that book club continues to periodically visit the weird that is Moore's creative output, but I do. Secondhand Souls, the sequel to A Dirty Job, is his latest entry into the wacky and bizarre world he has conjured up and it is as quirky, funny, and insane as I've come to expect from Moore.At the end of A Dirty Job, the world was saved (if you haven't read it and think this is a spoiler, get your knickers out of a twist and get over yourself) but that doesn't mean it had to stay that way. The cast of characters from the first novel notices that things seem to be heading a little (a lot) off kilter again. And when a banshee comes to warn them of the impending doom coming their way, a doom unlike that which they've seen before, they will have to come together to fight the forces of darkness again. This time there are ghosts congregating at the Golden Gate Bridge, the meat puppets have something slightly sinister going on amongst themselves, the remaining Death Merchants are so far behind on their soul collections they'll never catch up, and the Morrigan have a smooth talking, dangerous supernatural companion on their side. How Charlie, Sophie, Minty Fresh, Inspector Rivera, Lily, and Audrey will face all of this makes for a completely madcap read.As downright zany and convoluted as this sounds (and it is), Moore is a master at weaving his strange plot threads together to form a coherent and entertaining story. There is humor here as well as chaos and hijinks. The story and some of the situations are twisted (encouraging a person to commit suicide for the greater good?!) but everything works so well in the service of the story that even the questionable is forgiven. As a sequel, this is best read after A Dirty Job, otherwise some of the characters and their current situations take some adjusting to but for people who already appreciate Moore's offbeat mythology, this is a welcome addition to his canon. Even though there's absolutely nothing about a Moore novel that fits into my regular reading preferences (no to fantasy, no to paranormal, and a huge no to Death), they are like crack; once you've read one, you can't wait for the next hit and I appreciated Secondhand Souls for the rollicking and fast ride it was.
    • 3/5
      First things first, I would recommend reading A Dirty Job first. This is clearly a sequel that relies on a significant amount of backstory. The author does a pretty good job bringing you up to speed on past events, but I didn’t heed this advice and spent the first quarter of the novel with a “huh” expression on my faceIn Secondhand Souls, Christopher Moore places an ensemble of absurd characters together to determine what is happening to the departed souls of San Francisco. However, the story is secondary to the characters. For example, you have Charlie Asher, a former soul collector who died and his soul was transferred into an amalgamation of lunch meat, alligator and other spare animal parts with an added bonus of having a disproportionately large male member. On top of that, former Charlie’s daughter Sophie is capital D death… and she is a 7-year with two hell hounds and the mouth of a sailor. You get the idea.Moore’s writing is not for everyone, but if you like to giggle at sophomoric humor and enjoy a cast of absurd characters put into even more absurd situations, this book is for you!
    • 3/5
      Charlie Asher used to collect souls. There has been a gap, when many souls that should have been collected, weren’t. Somehow this is all related to the Golden Gate Bridge. This is the sequel to “A Dirty Job”, which was one of my favourites by Moore. Unfortunately, this one fell quite a bit short for me. I’m rating it ok at 3 stars, which might be a bit generous. It was nice to revisit some characters and I was interested as some events were happening, but I often missed connections on why something was happening (hence the sketchy summary in my first paragraph!). I listened to the audio, and I did think the narrator did a good job – he particularly did well with various accents.
    • 4/5
      I'm not feeling a long review for this audiobook, but I do feel that I should say something , so here it goes:

      1. Fisher Stevens is an excellent narrator and this audio performance is no exception. He did all the voices so well and with such gusto-I love this guy.

      2. Christopher Moore is hilarious. Sometimes juvenile, but that's okay with me. With characters like Minty Fresh and Lemon Fresh and phrases like "Shy Dookie" (that was a pet name for someone who could only poop at home), how can you not succumb to laughter, even if it is a bit silly?

      This audio book was a lot of fun and I recommend it to fans of this kind of humor!
    • 4/5
      I was in an airport many years ago, and saw the cover of Island of the Sequined Love Nun. How could a person not buy it? I've read quite a few of his books since then, and I've noticed a trend. He writes a book, set in a particular location, with a cast of characters. I buy it. He comes out with a sequel. I buy it, and discover it's mainly a diluted rehash of the first book in the series and tends to reach waaay too far for laughs. He even did it with Lamb, probably my favorite Moore book. So I've stopped buying his sequels.But I won Secondhand Souls from Early Reviewers. I noticed after I'd won that it was a sequel. So I bought the first book, A Dirty Job, and read it while I waited on Secondhand Souls. A Dirty Job brought back some of the quirky characters from previous San Francisco-based novels (e.g., The Emperor of San Francisco and his canine pals) and was a fun read.Secondhand Souls is a typical Moore sequel. Generally an entertaining ride, but about as fluffy as cotton candy. On the plus side, it glows in the dark!
    • 5/5
      Listen and just enjoy, giggles and laughs at wicked cruel impossible events. Charlie father to baby Sophie or as shes also known Illuminati, is now one of the squirrel people. New powers on the rise. Chaos is promised.
    • 4/5
      If you like Christopher Moore, then you really like Christopher Moore. If you don't like Christopher Moore, then...well, I just can't say because I like him, my wife likes him, and I've not run into anyone who doesn't like him. Suffice to say that, if you like Christopher Moore, then you will thoroughly enjoy this book because it continues in the vein of his previous works. A fun, entertaining, enjoyable read with skewed characters and a world that, while definitely off-kilter, is quite acceptable in the universe he postulates.This is the follow-up to A Dirty Job. (You do not need to have read that book to enjoy and understand this one; enough back story is provided that you can keep up to speed without it impeding the enjoyment of those of us who read the previous one. Then again, if you haven't read it, go back and do so. No, you don't need to, but why deprive yourself of the enjoyment of reading another Moore book.)Most of the memorable cast returns: the homeless Emperor of San Francisco, the 5-year-old Luminatus Sophie, the hellhounds Alvin and Mohammed, the Buddhist-nun Audrey, and Charlie who has been kept from death by being put in a fourteen-inch body made up of spare parts. Once again, souls are not being collected, instead being used to by evil underworlders to try and get a foothold here above ground. There is a screaming banshee (is there any other kind), a bridge painter who has fallen in love with a ghost, a demon from hell named Lemon Fresh, and...Look, one of Moore's strengths is his ability to conjure (yes, used that word on purpose) strange characters that seem to come from different dimensions of the same left field. He mixes them up and puts together a plot. (In this case, trying to keep the evil of the underworld from using all those souls to take over.) And he mashes those characters and plots together in a way that is at the same time funny and perfectly logical (in all its illogic.)To be honest, my preference Moore's books where he explores different themes and historical avenues (e.g. Lamb, Fool, etc.) I find them stronger than his stories about strange creatures in today's world (his vampire series and this collection about the soul collectors.) However, that does not mean these books are not strong. Moore pretty much delivers every time he writes. And this is one more example of why I anxiously await each new publication.
    • 4/5
      We start finding out the main character from the last book, Charlie Asher, who ‘died’, has spent the last year living in a 14” tall meat puppet with a small crocodile skull and a 10” slong he wears as a cumberbund. And when he gets aroused, he passes out. This gives some idea of the type of book you are getting into. A bit crass, at times vulgar and entirely funny.Charlie Asher and his buddhist nun girlfriend Audrey, have spent the last year trying to figure out how to get Asher a new body to inhabit that wasn’t 14” tall and made of lunch meat, his daughter Sophie is death incarnate with a mouth like a sailor, and her protective hellhounds of gone missing. Leaving her relatively defenseless. This increases Charlie's need to find a new body rather urgently. Minty Fresh had gone back to business as usual, and Inspector Alphonse Rivera, retired opened a bookstore to be a Death Merchant and didn’t actually do his job. And Lilly got a job on with the suicide help hotline.First the Emperor of San Francisco shows up in Rivera’s book shop with a quest to write down all the names of the dead, then a banshee shows up and starts screaming about impending doom, it doesn’t look like things are going to be quiet for much longer. Rivera goes to meet Minty, the only other Death Merchant he knows is still alive to discuss these developments. All the these people start sharing information and the picture it is painting is not good. For anyone, living or dead still on Earth.So they need to find someone willing to give up their body, preferably a healthy male body, so Charlie can help the group stop the apocalypse. Oh and Audrey’s little friends, the squirrel people are going beyond expectations and have a little revolt of their own. Adding just that much more chaos into the mix.This book was funny and well written, even with the vulgarity thrown in. I enjoyed reading it and for those who like Terry Pratchett but with a bit more sex and dirty words I think you’d like it too. For those easily offended I might suggest finding something else. I will certainly be trying more of Christopher Moore’s writing in the future.
    • 4/5
      First, a disclaimer. I love Chris Moore unreservedly, so my reviews of his books are always biased.This book is a sequel to A Dirty Job, so if you haven't read that one yet, read it first. I can't say for sure, but I feel like this book would be confusing for folks who haven't read A Dirty Job already.Chris's books are always funny. He has the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy, but my kids say I do too, so maybe that's why I enjoy him so much. Chris has a knack for combining the profane and the profound. This book might have a bit more emphasis on the profane...Chris really has an ear for dialogue too. Again, often profane, but always hilarious. And you get the feeling he really loves his characters.If you haven't read a Moore book before, if you like humor and aren't easily offended, please pick one up. Start with Practical Demonkeeping or Coyote Blue. Or even A Dirty Job. Yeah. That one. Then you can read this one. And your neighbors will probably ask you to stop laughing so loudly.
    • 4/5
      Having only read one of his books before, I knew what to expect from Christopher Moore. Hilarity, humor and wouldn't you guess, even more laugh-til-you-weep prose. This is definitely worth the read. I haven't read the first book in this series, so I guess I'm a little ahead. Oh well! Happy reading!
    • 4/5
      This book is most decidedly not for everyone. It is vulgar, ridiculous, irreverent, crude, and not for the easily offended. However, it is very, very funny.There are soul collectors and Death Merchants. There is a cute little girl with a foul mouth who also happens to have hellhounds at her beck and call and should never call anyone “kitty.” There are creatures cobbled together from spare animals parts and random souls:“(It was the head of an opossum, but the o was silent, as often happens with the decapitated.)And amazingly, it is sweet in a rather perverse, warped way:“They would all pass, and he would grieve for each one, even if he was only the man who mopped the floors, gathered the laundry, emptied the bins. He would say hello to each one every day, if they were conscious of not, and say goodbye each evening as well, so if they died in the night, goodbye would not go unsaid.”You gotta love a guy like that.This pretty much sums up the plot:“Forces of Darkness have been trying to rise from below. You are all that stands between them and destruction of the collective soul of humanity. Try not to screw up.”Christopher Moore never fails to make me laugh, However, people who enjoy his works should have a sense of the absurd, a rather dark sense of humor, and not be afraid of profanity flying in all directions.
    • 3/5
      Not as funny as the first in the series and also strays too close to Rick Riordan for comfort.
    • 4/5
      A sequel to "A Dirty Job", this story picks up where the other book left off, one year later. Quite a few references to the first book are skillfully woven in, so if you haven't read that, this one will still be understandable. However, I recommend reading the first book to fully grasp the characters. In this story, an old threat has returned, and an new threat has arisen. Once again the citizens of San Francisco past and present are in danger from the Underworld and our fearless anti-heroes are there to save them. When I say antihero, I mean that they appear to be that, even to themselves; but when it comes down to it, they have the resolve to do what must be done, even if they have no idea what that is.The ending was a bit heavy on the Eastern mysticism side of things for my taste. A personal preference for sure. I wish the crudeness was a bit more subtle (or gone), but again, a personal preference. What I love is the humor, the characters (many of them, not just one or two) and the way they look out for each other, and the little bits of history and place sprinkled throughout. I belly laughed many times throughout this read. I enjoy the fact that I do not know where the author is taking me for most of the story. He manages to pull it off in the end, but much of the time while reading I'm saying, "Wait, what?"