Meet Mookie Pearl.

Criminal underworld? He runs it.

Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it.

This, then, is my review.First, I have to say that the synopsis for this book is a bit misleading. Not that I read it before the book... but just now. I read it, and I'm like, "Nuh UH!"What I'm referring to is this:Now, maybe it's just nitpicky, but Mookie Pearl is repeatedly referred to as a thug and a soldier. One level above the "spray & pray" drive-by guys who don't give a shit if they kill a bus load of kids while taking out their target by throwing a bomb into a traffic jam. He's a bruiser, he's a pitbull, and he's smart and resilient and has a network of Mole-men who work for him. But I would not call that "running the criminal underworld".Likewise, I wouldn't call what Mookie does in the underworld "hunting". That line conveys images of well... hunters. Mookie isn't so much a hunter as he's a bulldozer that just runs through and over everything in it's path to flatten the thing it's told to flatten. And flatten it he does.But still, had I read that description before reading the book, I would have had all of these incorrect ideas of what the book is about, and I probably would have been... maybe not disappointed, but I'd have felt some kind of way about it. And that right there is why I trust my reviewer-friends' recommendations and don't bother reading blurbs or ad copy. (Well, plus a lot of it is just meaningless regurgitated superlatives and buzzwords. So there's also that.)So anyway. Having gone into this with little but the knowledge that this was a gritty UF novel and that it was apparently a good one, I was pretty much a blank slate... but still I was surprised by a few things.First was the style of this book. Chuck Wendig is, according to what I can see by the extensive research I've done of his Goodreads Author page, an American. The book is set in New York City, which is also in America. Yet, this book has a very British feel. From the very first line, it was like I could hear it in a kind of Cockney accent as I was reading. Not so much Mookie himself, or any of the characters, but the writing itself, and some of the slang. Part of this is the "This, then, is..." sentence structure that was peppered throughout the book, and another part is the way that certain bits were written in a British way ('Mr Pearl' instead of 'Mr. Pearl'), and the term "gobbos" as slang for "goblins". It justBritish to me in my head. I feel like someone from NYC would just call them "gobs" or something. Short and harsh sounding.The book's publisher does list a UK address, so maybe that explains some of the editing, like the "Mr" vs "Mr." thing, but still, the rest just feels to me like it was written with a UK audience in mind, perhaps. I could be wrong... and that's not really a complaint, just an observation. *shrug*The second thing that surprised me is just how uhh, descriptive, this was. There are few things that squick me out in terms of violence or injury. I feel that Chuck Wendig sent the Vollrath to find out what those were, and then used them against me. Broken bones? CHECK. Hyperextended joints? CHECK. Hyperextended joints that include broken bones poking through the skin like sharp white teeth? MOTHERFUCKING CHECK. :XIt's... been a while since I've winced so much while reading a book. I would like to say, for the record: Owwie. *shudder*And then the third thing that surprised me is the sound effects. This one kinda snuck up on me, actually. I'd been reading them, hearing them, for about half the book before I realized that they were there. LOL. What surprised me is that I liked them. It added a little something extra to reinforce the sound that the text is telling you to hear, but it's not so overused or inappropriately used that every noise has a soundtrack. It worked for me, and I figured that I was one of those people who would be annoyed by that kind of thing. Go figure.Other than that, I actually kind of loved the story. I enjoyed the blending of everyday NYC and a Lovecraftian underworld, with an alternate world feel of all the almost-cartoonish gangs and characters who don't seem all that cartoonish at all when they're right up close.I loved the interaction and chaotic chemistry between Mookie and his daughter, and how they both are kind of dancing circles around the other trying to get what they need out of the relationship... but never quite intersecting. Nora's anger was one that I could definitely identify with... and one that I thought was both justified and unfair at the same time. I think that Wendig did a great job at showing the jagged edges of their relationship and making me feel for both of them.I also really liked the "magic" system, as well as the drug-underworld depicted, and liked how the history of the underworld was given in little snippets of journal entries from Oakes. (I really hope that he makes an appearance at some point in the series!) I liked the way that the underworld was populated by people in a kind of monstrous mythology, and that there's not a werewolf or vampire (sparkly or non) in sight. It's all just underbelly creepy crawlies and things that have evolved to the darkness but greedily aspire to the light just because it's something they don't (or can't) have. I liked it. :DI'll definitely be looking for the next book in the series, as well as moving Blackbirds up the list.*thinks about the bones...*You know, I think I'll give myself a little buffer, actually. O_o