To break out of Heaven, a small group of rebel angels need a
human patsy, someone not too bright, someone who won't ask
questions, someone who will go with the flow, and they know
the perfect fallen angel to find this human. Bayliss has
been stuck on Earth, among the "monkeys," for centuries.
He's modeled his life on the literary PI Philip Marlowe, and
just like the best hard-boiled PI cases, the job turns out
to be much more complicated. All he had to do was find a
hapless human to take Gabriel's place, you know a human who
will just go with the flow? Like all good classic detective
stories, an encounter with a mysterious dame changes the
best laid plans, and now Bayliss finds himself saddled with
a new angel who won't play by the rules and won't take her
new fate lying down. This dame may just prove to be
Bayliss's undoing...or Heaven's.
SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT by Ian Tregillis is without a
doubt the best book I've read this year. From the very first
line, I was hooked. The imagery is stunning, but Tregillis
captured the atmosphere and tone of the best classic PI of
all time; Philip Marlowe. How Tregillis manages to combine
the tropes of the hard-boiled detective genre and still turn
them on their heads is brilliant. I'll just say that even
knowing this genre well, I was surprised—and thrilled—with
the ending.
For those of you who might have doubts about reading a novel
written with a 1930-40's flair, Tregillis alternates points
of view between Bayliss and the new angel, Molly. Molly is
plucky, smart, and not the type to just let things be. She
doesn't allow herself to fall into the mysterious dame
category. It's this shift away from the classic female role
in the PI genre that really makes SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT
a tantalizing mystery with epic consequences.
SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT by Ian Tregillis creates a
stunning world of fallen angels, a MacGuffin that could
alter the universe, and a climax that is so perfect and so
unexpected you will want to immediately read the book again
just to find out how you missed the clues. I highly
recommend SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT if you're a love
mysteries, classic noir detective stories, and epic
struggles for Heaven, or if you just love reading. Ian
Tregillis creates a complex plot that twist and turn into
surprising places and captures the gritty atmosphere of the
classic detective mystery with stunning imagery and gripping
emotion. His novels will not disappoint.
Ian Tregillis's Something More Than Night is a Dashiell
Hammett and Raymond Chandler inspired murder mystery set in
Thomas Aquinas's vision of Heaven. It's a noir detective
story starring fallen angels, the heavenly choir, nightclub
stigmatics, a priest with a dirty secret, a femme fatale,
and the Voice of God.
Somebody has murdered the angel Gabriel. Worse, the Jericho
Trumpet has gone missing, putting Heaven on the brink of a
truly cosmic crisis. But the twisty plot that unfolds from
the murder investigation leads to something much bigger: a
con job one billion years in the making.
Because this is no mere murder. A small band of angels has
decided to break out of heaven, but they need a human patsy
to make their plan work.
Much of the story is told from the point of view of Bayliss,
a cynical fallen angel who has modeled himself on Philip
Marlowe. The yarn he spins follows the progression of a
Marlowe novel-the mysterious dame who needs his help,
getting grilled by the bulls, finding a stiff, getting
slipped a mickey.
Angels and gunsels, dames with eyes like fire, and a grand
maguffin, Something More Than Night is a murder mystery for
the cosmos.
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