The Devil Himself: A Novel

Read/Listened to about a hundred books last year; this one sits up in my top 3. My bread and butter is crime-drama/thrillers (Don Winslow, Dennis Lehane, etc). That being said, The Devil Himself did exactly what a good writer intends to—makes you turn the page. Finished it the day I got it.Think American South, think swamp, think noir, and you expect a slogging pace. Not here. Pacing was great. I kept wanting to put it down and take a break, get back to it later after work but I couldn’t. Skipped the gym that afternoon so I could finish. The book length helps with that. While not the shortest story I’ve ever read, it isn’t daunting either. Coming in under three hundred pages, you know it’s gonna end without taking too many detours. And that’s exactly what it did. Opens up shooting straight down the barrel and the story unravels from there in brutal, yet poetic fashion.Straightforward plot, easy to read, enjoyable, bloody, thrilling, heartfelt, interesting characters. It was a good book, man. Real good. Made me buy his other novel, Last Call for the Living. Farris earned another reader as long as he writes. Five stars.

Great read with great characters.

Absolutely loved The Devil Himself. From the first sentence this novel races out of the chute and dares you to close that cover until the very last sentence. It is dark, violent, exciting, and packed with surprises at every turn. Even though the storyline is very dark, the two main characters, Maya and Leonard, are likable. I found myself reading faster from fear that something was going to happen to one of my favorite characters.Peter Farris has always been talented at bringing characters to life and making you feel like you are in the backwoods of Georgia. You can hear those twigs break and smell the wet dirt. You can feel the fear radiating off of Maya as she tries to escape the clutches of the human traffickers that snatched and sold her. Plus leave it to Farris to throw in a kinky surprise or two that leaves you shaking your head and wondering where did he get this idea. The scary part is there are actually people out there doing it right now.The Devil Himself was so well written and engaging that I read it in one sitting. It was that good. Highly recommend.

the reader will feel that he/she is in the book. really effective writing

I'm not going to sit here and try and write some witty or detailed review, I'm sure goodreads and others below will have it, Ill just say this, I haven't read a book in one day in years and I got it this morning and put it down about 30 minutes ago finished. I know this book won awards in France, and is just now hitting out shelves in America, but Peter Farris should be winning awards here, and we shouldn't be relying on France to tell us how good an author we have at home. Buy the book. I haven't in years that was on kindle on my ipad. Holding a book really adds to the experience, I did however pull the trigger on the kindle version as well so I can read it again on my summer break. Following Peter on social media, because I'm all in for his other Novels.