Ooh, I had been looking forward to reading Hell's Bells: Samuel Johnson vs The Devil. Back in January this year, I read the first in this series (Is it a series? So far there's only two and I'm not sure how much further Connolly's going with this... Let's just call it a series, eh?) The Gates, I was blown away. Not so much by the fact that it was a ripsnorter - it also made me suspect Connolly's true calling isn't really the dark, creepy stuff for adults that he does so well, but this dark, creepy and FUN stuff for Young Adults.
I was right. Hell's Bells: Samuel Johnson vs The Devil proves it. Not that Connolly's been wasting his time with the adult books he put out before The Gates and now Hell's Bells. Far from it. The guy's an amazing talent. It's just that The Gates and Hell's Bells are so damned brilliant.
The Plot
Really it just takes up where it left off. In a fit of misery after the failure of his last attempt to conquer Earth, The Great Malevolence has let things slip a bit. His cohorts are scrambling about all trying to either take over themselves, or bring their master to his senses so that Hell can get back on track.
One of the demons not trying to overthrow the now unstable government in Hell uses the same way it got to Earth last time: the amazing and misunderstood energy produced by the Large Hadron Collider. Only this time, instead of coming to Earth, it reaches out and grabs a bunch of unlikely lads, including Samuel Johnson (our hero from last time) and hauls them back to Hell.
As things are likely to do in Hell, everything goes rather badly for these poor sods and the demon who snatched them, what with other demons wanting to get their claws, paws and tentacles on them and all.
The Characters
Hell's Bells reunites Samuel Johnson (now 13) with the not-so-demonic demon Nurd and his sidekick Wormwood. It also reunites us with Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel.
For some wonderful comic relief, we're introduced to four demonic (though regretfully quite human) dwarves called Angry, Dozy, Mumbles and Jolly. These dudes are psychotic, drunk and incorrigible - oh what fun Connolly must have had writing them!
Then there's Mrs Abernathy, or the demon formally known and Ba'al who now wears a disguise made out of what's left of the original Mrs Abernathy and who now also like to wear frocks. In Hell. This cross-dressing demon with the identity crisis is the one who hauled Samuel, his dog Boswell, Constable Peel, Sergeant Rowan, Dan the ice-cream man and the four dwarves to Hell.
The Style
This... THIS is what makes Hell's Bells and its prequel The Gates so good. Connolly can not only really creep you out (I woke up this morning at 3 am and haven't been able to get back to sleep just from thinking about what I'd read last night) - he makes it fun. There's really a lot of very funny stuff in there, considering the setting of the book, which is HELL, by the way. Like The Gates, the ebook edition of Hell's Bells is littered with hyperlinks to hilarious asides.
Hell's Bells is a little darker than The Gates though. Connolly makes more frequent observations/warnings about the nature of good vs evil and the human soul and what can happen to that soul if it chooses to misbehave. He also demonstrates his talent for real creepy stuff which, as any who may have read his Charlie Parker novels would know, he has plenty of.
The dialogue, asides and dry comedy make for a very easy and fun read - even with the dark, creepy stuff Connolly put in there. It's a joy.
Conclusion
Buy The Gates. Read it. Then buy Hell's Bells: Samuel Johnson vs The Devil and read that too. You won't be disappointed. 8/10.
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