These Hellish Happenings

In 1707, the vampire Jack Bentley strikes a bargain with the Devil to escape a hunt that is closing in on him. Facing Satan seems a better bet than an angry mob. Three centuries on, the Devil comes to collect.

Jack is hauled down to Hell and handed a permanent post at the Registration Office of the Damned. There is no fire and brimstone on the Administrative Level. Instead he finds board meetings, a copier that breaks down now and then, and rows of identical demons in suits.

The newly dead are a nuisance, mostly because they never stop complaining. They are the smallest of his troubles. An ex-lover who is now dead turns up in his new life, and Jack feels a risky pull toward Alexander Ridner, a high-ranking demon who keeps him company.

Hell also has anti-vampire politics, tangled and unfair, and they look a good deal like the ones in the living world. The book is a comic urban fantasy with a workplace setting, and it asks whether Jack can survive an eternity of office life, old ghosts and a forbidden attraction.