The Snake Agent

Rating NR Genre fantasy Author Liz Williams Publisher Night Shade Books

Heaven, Hell and Earth coexist in the world of Singapore Three, a balmy coastal metropolis on the edge of the South China Sea. Here where technology and religion go hand in hand, Detective Inspector Chen Wei of Singapore Three’s Police Department is the specialist for cases involving the supernatural and other crimes of magic and spirits. His latest assignment is quite the conundrum. Pearl Tang, daughter of one of the city’s most powerful financiers, has been murdered and her spirit is missing. Suspecting it’s a matter of ghost-trading, Chen is unprepared to find himself blocked at every turn and running up against an agent from Hell, one Seneschal Zhu Irzh. 

Zhu Irzh is a regulator and promoter of Vice. When he’s tapped by the First Lord of Banking to find the whereabouts of a dead prostitute, he cannot help but be more than a little curious. However, it is not his place to question and figures the sooner the Tang girl is found, the better off he’ll be. The last thing he needs is complications from the living world, but from the moment he arrives on Earth, trouble comes in spades.

Chen and Zhu strike an uneasy alliance as they struggle to figure out what has happened to Pearl Tang’s spirit as well those of many other innocents whose ghosts have never arrived at their proper afterlife destination. Their investigation leads them through the lowest orders of Hell and onto the trail of something that could alter the very existence of all three worlds.

Liz Williams delivers a knock-out with this incredible tale. Her characters are immensely complex, her mythology compelling and most importantly, believable, while her prose is astonishing. The descriptions here are so vivid and finely wrought that there are times where the book is more like a graphic novel with stunning artistic visuals rather than simply words on a page. The plot is sublime genius with intricate twists and turns that will satisfy mystery readers as well as heart pounding suspense that would do a thriller fan proud. I am in awe of Williams’ talent and highly recommend this book to everyone. I look forward to a lot more adventures with Chen.