I found this hard going to with perseverance I managed to get to the end, did I enjoy it? Not really but I would encourage readers to make their own judgement

'Clockwork City' is the second book in the Delphic Division series by Paul Crilley and is a vast improvement to the first book, 'Poison City'. It is rather an insane novel as was the first, and follows Gideon Tau, also known as London, on his journey working for the occult investigative service for the South African police. On his travels, he is joined by his partners from the series opener, the alcoholic talking dog, and his boss, Armitage, together they are ready to embark on a case involving more demons and detities as well as faerie gangs who control the city's underworld.

This is a mix of a variety of genres as in the previous book - crime thriller, horror, fantasy, and science fiction, you may be forgiven for assuming that this sort of book wouldn't work, but it does. It's a given that everythings rather chaotic and more than a little manic but that is part of its charm. That said, this novel suffers from one big issue I had with the first one - there is simply too much happening. I read to relax and found it hard to do that with this book. I feel that if the author pulled back a little on this urge to constantly pump the plot full of action, he could be on to a winner.

They say that there is a fine line between being a madman and being a genius - I would say that Crilley certainly writes like a genius. I look forward to his next book, he is unique in a world full of imitations and that holds value for me.

Many thanks to Hodder Paperbacks for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.