Agents Of Light And Darkness, Audio Edition

Agents Of Light And Darkness, Audio Edition (2003/2008) Simon R. Green narrated by Marc Vietor

Angels have come to the Nightside searching for the Unholy Grail–the cup Judas drank from at the Last Supper. Before the entire Nightside is destroyed, John Taylor is hired to find the Grail so it can be taken to the Vatican. But the angels from above and below aren’t just going to let it slip through their fingers.

As I was listening to this, I was thinking about why I liked this series so much, and then John met up with Suzie.

Suzie Shooter was lying sprawled across a scuffed and faded green leather couch, a bottle of gin in one hand, a cigarette in one corner of her downturned mouth.
…
As always when she wasn’t working, Suzie had let herself go. She was wearing a grubby Cleopatra Jones T-shirt, and a pair of jeans that had been laundered almost to the point of no return. No shoes, no make-up. From the look of her, it had been some time since her last gig. She was overweight, her belly bulging out over her jeans, her long blonde hair was a mess, and she smelled bad. Without taking her eyes off the mayhem on the screen, she took a long pull from her gin bottle, not bothering to take the cigarette out of her mouth first, then offered me the bottle.
…
When she came back, she looked like Shotgun Suzie again. The grubby T-shirt and faded jeans were gone, replaced by gleaming black leather jacket, trousers and knee-high boots, generously adorned with steel chains and studs. She wore two bandoliers of bullets across her impressive chest, and the hilt of her favourite pump-action shotgun peered over her right shoulder from its holster on her back. A dozen assorted grenades hung from her belt. She’d even brushed her hair and slapped on some make-up. She looked sharp and deadly and very alive.

Shotgun Suzie is the antitheses of very love interest in every action story ever. She’s the burly one without any class or couth and she doesn’t give a shit what you think.

In this story we discover why she’s so hard and dark and scarred, but sharing that with John doesn’t change her. She remains hard and dark and untouchable.

“You religious, Taylor?”

I shrugged. “Hard not to be, in the Nightside. If only because there are no atheists in foxholes. I’m pretty sure there is a God, a Creator. I just don’t think he cares about us. I don’t think we matter to him. You?”

“I used to tell people I was a lapsed agnostic,” she said easily. “Now I tell them I’m a born-again heretic.

I really do enjoy this series. Although it’s borderline horror, it’s so over the top I can’t take the blood and guts and monsters seriously.

And I am enjoying the narration. I won’t say he’s as versatile as other narrators I like, but he’s not irritating, and he does a good job keeping different characters separate.

Publisher: Audible Studios
Rating: 8/10

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