No walls can hold a good (or in this case not so good) man down. Certainly no walls of Italian justice system making. And so after navigating the legal quagmire and tediously intricate bureaucracy for about 17 months, Dyson Devereux is back on the streets. Wasting no time, he makes his way back to England and picks up more or less where he left off. Working in the funeral industry, raising a young son and…offing anyone who gets in his way. The title is dramatic enough to hint at the fact that it may not works out all that well for him, but his adventures or technically misadventures are nevertheless morbidly entertaining. So yeah, look at me, a person who normally stays away from series, reading a serial. And, finding out, that actually this isn’t a sequel, but book three. Somehow I went into book two without ever checking out Necropolis. Now I need to track that one down too, read them uncharacteristically out of order and all because Dyson Devereux is such a fun bastard. Sartorially immaculate polyglot, punctilious pedant, smug killing machine with a highly singular moral compass…he’s just entirely too much fun to read about. At first, thought maybe it was a one off, maybe he’d get too tiresome for more than one book, but no…Dyson manages. I’d say he gets away with it like he does with murder, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate for murder is a messy business and because for Dyson it’s always so personal, the aftermath, however elaborate, is never all that simple. Technically, the man is a serial killer, his body count qualifies him easily, but he doesn’t have a type or kills for pleasure, for him it’s more…janitorial, as it were. People get in his way, people offend (whether with their noise pollution or political correctness) and Dyson eliminates, swiftly and efficiently, much like his namesake cleaning apparatus. It’s almost a decorum thing, if everyone just behaved…well, they’d live longer. At least, around Dyson. But no, it’s one thing after another. Old flames, coworkers, neighbors…life is messy and Dyson can never just relax, it seems. Tauted as the British Psycho as in the alternative to Mr. Bateman and the comparison works. Very similar moral deprivation as the action driver. Glib, twisted, darkly humorous. Thoroughly entertaining. And, as highly unusual as it is to admit for a standalone connoisseur, leaves you wanting more. Recommended. But do read them in order, properly, with this being book three. Thanks Netgalley.