Book Review: From Hell with Love by Simon R. Green

• Genre: Urban Fantasy
• Hardcover: 368 pages 
• Publisher: Roc Hardcover
  
• Release Date: June 1, 2010
• Series: Secret Histories (Book 4)
• Source: Local Library

Blurb: It's no walk in the park for a Drood, a member of the family that has protected humanity from the things that go bump in the night for centuries. They aren't much liked by the creatures they kill, by ungrateful humans, or even by one another.

Now their Matriarch is dead, and it's up to Eddie Drood, acting head of the family, to figure out whodunit. Unpopular opinion is divided: it was either Eddie's best girl, Molly. Or Eddie himself. And Eddie knows he didn't do it.


Review:

Everyone's favorite secret agent shaman is back with his witchy lady in From Hell with Love, the latest in Simon R. Green's Secret Histories series. After gaining popularity for the series, Green expanded what was originally a trilogy into a full-blown series. From Hell with Love is the first step out of the original mold and into something more. The result is good, but not great.

Eddie Drood never has it easy. Especially now, with the Matriarch of the Drood family dead and the family in chaos, with Eddie as the acting head of the family to unravel the mystery behind his grandmother's death. Some people even dare to point the finger at Eddie himself.

From Hell with Love tried to expand the Secret Histories universe, but something about it just didn't quite hit critical mass yet. This world just isn't as wild or as well developed as Nightside, so I find myself missing it. At least, in Hell with Love, readers get the opportunity to return to Nightside even more, but almost to a point where it starts to feel like Secret Histories is leaning too much on the Nightside instead of developing into its own universe.

Despite this, I just can't dislike Green novels. Hell with Love has entertaining twists and turns, and is far more engaging and unexpected than the last novel in the series, Spy Who Haunted Me. But let me warn you: the cliffhanger ending of Hell with Love will make you so mad. Luckily for me, I had the next book close at hand, but if you don't, you'll want to throw the book against the wall -and immediately run out and buy the next one.