Sandman Slim

Richard Kadrey's hardboiled urban fantasy series follows James Stark — a magician exiled to Hell for eleven years and forced to fight as a hitman in its arenas — after he claws his way back to Los Angeles to settle the score with the people who sent him there. Blending noir crime plotting with angels, demons and black magic, and narrated throughout in Stark's profane, wisecracking voice, the series runs from 2009's "Sandman Slim" through the forthcoming "In the Devil Wind," published by Harper Voyager.