Mike Carey has made a name for himself as an established comic writer on titles like Lucifer, Hellblazer, Crossing Midnight, X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four but he has also displayed a deft hand for prose. Thicker Than Water is the fourth book featuring his Felix Castor character, an exorcist in a slightly alternate London who uses a tin whistle to banish ghosts to the netherworld.

This fourth book sees Castor get embroiled in a case that takes him back to his childhood and briefly forces him from London to Liverpool, the place he is from originally. Thicker Than Water, like the previous Castor novels, uses its settings like another character in the proceedings and Carey crafts prose that is dripping in atmosphere and mood, creating a London of tower blocks and belligerent coppers. He continues to merge classic noir or detective tropes and supernatural stylings with ease and proficiency. Carey fills Castor’s world with well-delineated supporting characters like his landlady Pen, former friend Rafi Ditko (possessed by the spirit of a truly evil demon) and succubus Juliet.

When the first book was published, Castor came across like a more serious John Constantine, a character that Carey wrote for a number of years for DC’s Vertigo line. But the differences between the two are more apparent now: Castor is less callous and arrogant than Constantine and less sure of himself. Also, Castor’s world is more low-key and mundane than the world that Constantine inhabits and it makes the horror more hard-hitting.

My only minor quibble with this particular volume is that perhaps it might be a little hard to pick it up if you haven’t read the three predecessors, but that’s a minor criticism. So, once you’ve picked up and digested the first three (The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle and Dead Men’s Boots), then you can grab this one. And not one to rest on his laurels, the fifth Castor book, The Naming of The Beasts, is out as you read this. Felix Castor comes from a long British tradition and is a worthy addition to the canon.