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Dirty Commie Bastards: The Casebook of Johnny Sundown
Johnny Sundown, Private Investigator in 1950's Chicago and a practitioner of magic, takes on a case to find a missing runaway girl, only to discover she has already been murdered by a psychotic serial killer. Determined to bring him to the kind of justice only magic can inflict, he finds himself dealing with a magician visiting from out of town, the Russian, Ivan Sukut. Together they join forces to take down the murdering monster and form a fast friendship. Then Johnny learns Ivan may have a secret agenda. One that could utterly destroy the United States of America.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 14, 2016
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April 14, 2017
Johnny Sundown is a magician and a detective in 1950s Chicago, a version of our world where magic is dwindling and dying. As the 1952 presidential convention looms, Johnny becomes embroiled in a case to find a satanic serial killer and meets a vising untrained magician, whose presence in Chicago might have more nefarious consequences than Johnny wants to realize.
As always, I find myself reading book 2 of a series, which I didn't realize until I finished the book. This probably explains some of my frustration of how a good chunk of the world building is just given to the reader in the second chapter, casually dropping that the main character is a magician, a Shadow Warrior, one of the last people in the world to use this dying power of the twelve bloodlines. It makes sense now why the novel would upfront just lay out the world in such a blunt manner if there was a previous novel that probably went into it much more nuanced detail, but that's on me for reading this out of order.
In a lot of ways, this novel is reminiscent of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, which features a wizard detective in Chicago who solves cases that feature the supernatural. World building wise, Thompson's novel is interesting in that it is set in the middle of the twentieth century, and is able to explore the perils of patriotism and nationalism. I think where it felt weaker was how magic operated and existed in the world. Again, this is probably because I missed the first novel, but one thing I love about Butcher's series is how magic works and the system it operates by. Thompson's characters seem to be able to wield the elements, and once they invoke certain magical rituals to expand and focus their power, seem to be able to use them at will with little drawback. While I liked the creative powers the main character uses, such as a pollen spell for instance, I have two critiques with how magic operates in the world created. First, it seems so crazily overpowered. Both magicians featured have no issue mind wiping and using their power to mind control anyone they come across with, which comes across as absurdly broken. While this is integral to the plot, the magic really makes it feel like Johnny Sundown is never in any danger - even at the end, the novel still feels like he has the upper hand against his adversary, and he really is just holding back to not hurt his foe. Harry Dresden in the Butcher series is constantly using his magic, but forced to be creative and looking for allies, as he is constantly outmatched and outgunned by his opponents. I guess I wish I saw more fleshing out of the 1950s world Thompson created and the magical implications of it, which certainly could have been in the prequel.
Overall, the book was well edited. There were small mistakes on occasion, such as a line of text in a different font and repeated comma that I noticed, but that's pretty minor. The novel oscillates between about a half dozen perspectives, and for several of them, , Thompson heavily used short, terse one sentence paragraphs. While I like this method, it felt overused here, which to me cheapened the dramatic effect style was intended to have.
Finally, the ending.
Overall, Thompson's novel is an entertaining urban fantasy mystery set in the 1950s and I hope I have the chance to pick up the prequel novel to see how Thompson sets up and defines the universe he created.
As always, I find myself reading book 2 of a series, which I didn't realize until I finished the book. This probably explains some of my frustration of how a good chunk of the world building is just given to the reader in the second chapter, casually dropping that the main character is a magician, a Shadow Warrior, one of the last people in the world to use this dying power of the twelve bloodlines. It makes sense now why the novel would upfront just lay out the world in such a blunt manner if there was a previous novel that probably went into it much more nuanced detail, but that's on me for reading this out of order.
In a lot of ways, this novel is reminiscent of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, which features a wizard detective in Chicago who solves cases that feature the supernatural. World building wise, Thompson's novel is interesting in that it is set in the middle of the twentieth century, and is able to explore the perils of patriotism and nationalism. I think where it felt weaker was how magic operated and existed in the world. Again, this is probably because I missed the first novel, but one thing I love about Butcher's series is how magic works and the system it operates by. Thompson's characters seem to be able to wield the elements, and once they invoke certain magical rituals to expand and focus their power, seem to be able to use them at will with little drawback. While I liked the creative powers the main character uses, such as a pollen spell for instance, I have two critiques with how magic operates in the world created. First, it seems so crazily overpowered. Both magicians featured have no issue mind wiping and using their power to mind control anyone they come across with, which comes across as absurdly broken. While this is integral to the plot, the magic really makes it feel like Johnny Sundown is never in any danger - even at the end, the novel still feels like he has the upper hand against his adversary, and he really is just holding back to not hurt his foe. Harry Dresden in the Butcher series is constantly using his magic, but forced to be creative and looking for allies, as he is constantly outmatched and outgunned by his opponents. I guess I wish I saw more fleshing out of the 1950s world Thompson created and the magical implications of it, which certainly could have been in the prequel.
Overall, the book was well edited. There were small mistakes on occasion, such as a line of text in a different font and repeated comma that I noticed, but that's pretty minor. The novel oscillates between about a half dozen perspectives, and for several of them, , Thompson heavily used short, terse one sentence paragraphs. While I like this method, it felt overused here, which to me cheapened the dramatic effect style was intended to have.
Finally, the ending.
Overall, Thompson's novel is an entertaining urban fantasy mystery set in the 1950s and I hope I have the chance to pick up the prequel novel to see how Thompson sets up and defines the universe he created.
Displaying 1 of 1 review