Jack Sparks is dead to begin with. There is no doubt about that.Old Jack Sparks is as dead as a door nail. Well, no spoiler there, the clue is in the title I suppose. I am surely not giving away any conclusion you may have already reached having picked this book up. Although given the particular untrustworthy nature of the narrator of this tale as possibly one of the most unreliable I have ever read even that assumed truth is questionable.
Jack Sparks is a pop cultural journalist who courts controversy in his professional life and who guzzles copious amounts of drugs in his personal one. This blurs the line between both and creates little but mayhem in a life already rudderless in a black moral sea. Like old Nick Kent or John Constantine or someone equally mercurial. We join him as he is attempting to research the last book he will ever try to write. One that seeks to prove or disprove the existence of paranormal forces in the same world where Facebook,Twitter and Youtube exist. A Demon can barely get a look in these days. There is a sense that the since the otherworldly is only believed if it comes to us in short Paranormal Activity filmic bursts and it is seriously impacting upon the established religions control by fear techniques. A thoroughly modern demon would appear on the Jeremy Kyle show before risking being exorcised from a helpless child. gathering a following of thumbs ups and likes whilst boiling their victims innards green along the way.
Jack Sparks is an ardent practitioner of the manly art of moral self deception and constantly capable of lying his way into his own good books. A right bastard but just grotesquely interesting enough to want to know what depths he is prepared to dive head long into in order to satisfy himself. Yet he is also chasing evil and has a dragon by the tail, in more ways than one.
Really enjoyed this read. It was fast and funny and full of sordid pop cultural observations that had me chuckling.
..like a demon.
