An endorsement by—and a comparison to—one of my favorite authors was enough to make me snatch The Everything Box from the discount bin.  While I can see why the comparison was made, I can’t recommend this over a Christopher Moore novel.  That said, The Everything Box is a fun and light-hearted supernatural romp that is, at times, laugh-out-loud funny.

Set in a version of Los Angeles where the supernatural exists and is known to a select few, the story follows Charlie “Coop” Cooper, a thief fresh out of prison whose special talents—namely, an immunity to the effects of magic, curses, and charms—makes him the ideal candidate to steal a box of unknown origins, with an unknown purpose, and unknown powers.  After a successful heist, he is approached by shady government spooks, doomsday cults, demon worshippers, and an angel, all of whom want the box for their own ends; and when his best friend and an old flame get swept up in the box’s wake, Coop has to keep the box out of the wrong hands to prevent Armageddon… just as soon as he figures out which hands are the wrong ones.

Richard Kadrey infuses his characters and world with a sparkling wit, and I found myself laughing in public at certain scenes (such as a gang of vampire tweens robbing the hapless member of a doomsday cult).  The world’s setup was reminiscent of an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, with vampires, ghosts, and zombies all integrated into various spots of society.  I found the whole thing to be great fun.

However, I did have issue with the pacing.  All the action scenes—the heists, the standoffs, etc.—were enjoyable to read and sped by.  The downtime, however, was very down, and slowed the books pace by an order of magnitude.  Fortunately, the joy of the heist scenes outweighed the dull nature of the other scenes, and that’s a credit to how well Mr. Kadrey knows his characters.  I also found the ending to be a bit anticlimactic, but it did put a neat little bow on the story.

The comparison to Christopher Moore is fair, but uneven pacing makes this story, albeit fun, fizzle at the end.  3 of 5 stars.

#bookreview #2017 #author #funny #characters #RichardKadrey