Killing Pretty: Stark gives mainstream life a try, and fails brilliantly

Killing Pretty by Richard Kadrey

Killing Pretty is the seventh book in Richard Kadrey’s SANDMAN SLIM series. Barnes and Noble included this book on their list of series books you could start if you hadn’t read the earlier books, and I think this is true. The book is not a reboot by any means, but James Stark, who was known as Sandman Slim when he fought in the arena in Hell, does some ruminating about what his life in L.A. has been like the past few years, and savvy readers would have no real trouble catching on to the story.

At first, Killing Pretty is a little worrying, because it looks like Stark is going legit. He is an employee of a licensed private eye, Julie, who used to work for the Golden Vigil, a hybrid agency comprised of Homeland Security agents and heavenly angels — and that law enforcement scenario should give you nightmares. Julie wants Stark to do things like get a driver’s license and buy a car, which is a challenge for someone who doesn’t even have a checking account. Stark is feeling the loss of one of the most potent artifacts he brought from Hell, and hates the idea of having to buy a car. Life isn’t too mundane for our boy, though; just after New Year’s, a man approached Stark saying he was Angel of Death. He was in a human body that was missing its heart. Stark was inclined to be skeptical, but since New Year’s no one on earth has died. That seems to support the man’s story.

Julie has taken on the case, and Stark’s investigation into who trapped the Angel of Death in a mortal body leads him to the American Nazi movement in the 1930s, to the magical community known as the Sub Rosa and to a new group of power brokers. The push-back he gets ranges from vandalism to near-fatal attacks to bureaucratic oppression; Stark, his business partner Kasabian and his new friend Chihiro get an eviction notice on their video rental store, citing eminent domain for a freeway bypass.

The action is fast-paced as always, and it wasn’t until I finished the book that I realized there is actually quite a bit of hanging around the store and sitting in cars. The banter among Stark’s friends is so snappy that I certainly didn’t notice that while I was reading.

Part of Stark’s charm is his (or perhaps Kadrey’s; it’s hard to tell) love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. In earlier books, it was clear that Hell, or at least Stark’s Hell, was based on Los Angeles. In Killing Pretty, Stark thinks about his home city:

…This city is built on a bedrock of high crimes and rotten death. The Black Dahlia. Bugsy Siegel. The Night Stalker. We’ve buried and forgotten more bodies than all the cemeteries of Europe. Someday the water is going to run out and the desert will strip this town down to its Technicolor bones. Even the buzzards won’t want it and the city knows it. Maybe that’s why I like it.

The Nazi-mysticism twist and the plan of the people who tried to kill Death are plausible and fit in well with the Sandman Slim world. I stayed up until midnight to finish this; I wasn’t always grasping the arms of my chair or anything; it was moving so quickly and was so interesting I just didn’t want to put it down. I love Stark’s voice, his moments of vulnerability, and his skewed view of the world.

One thing confuses me. The cover and the jacket copy both mention specifically The Girl With the Graveyard Eyes. If she was in there, I missed her. There are two possible candidates; one is Chihiro, but I wouldn’t call her eyes “graveyard eyes” exactly; the second is a character we meet about halfway through the book. Stark never talks about her “graveyard eyes” either. What did I miss?

Despite this puzzle, I enjoyed Killing Pretty. While I think you owe it to yourself to read all the books in order, I agree that you could start here and comfortably follow the plot. Stark may have tried a nine-to-five job, but don’t worry. He’s not going mainstream anytime soon.