Corrupt Chicago politicians with supernatural ties. Tech bros whose shenanigans go well beyond the typical Silicon Valley bad behavior. Student Loans Paid In Blood, the first entry in Todd Allen’s Hardboiled Magic series, serves up these tales and more. Yep, it’s another book review.
Student Loans Paid In Blood is really more a collection of short stories about cases solved by Mr. Lewis, a “Physics Consultant” whose business is dealing with supernatural things that don’t properly answer to the laws of the physical world. Thing along the lines of a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories where there aren’t necessarily many common elements beyond Holmes, Watson, and a few reoccurring villains showing up from story to story. Or, if you prefer, more like a weekly procedural detective show where there’s a bit of an overarching seasonal plot arc, but every episode can also largely stand alone.
I like to read a bit of fiction before bed most nights, and one or two of these stories each night made them the perfect length for my bedtime routine. That’s not to say I didn’t read more than that on a few occasions.
The Hardboiled Magic world is our world, with the serial numbers shaved off just enough to avoid a defamation lawsuit, where magic lurks in the margins (and sometimes not so much in the margins). It’s a world where the curse on a “downtown Chicago baseball team” that condemned them to nearly a century of misery is something with actual supernatural roots.
Allen is a good storyteller, and each story moves along at a solid pace. The various parodied archetypes had me chucking on more than a few occasions. Two particular standout stories for me were “Legal Termination of a Warlock” which takes place in an all too familiar to me software development company, and the books titular “Student Loans Paid In Blood” which bounces between scenes at an unscrupulous student loan vendor (are there any other kinds of student loan vendors?) and scenes with former students who’ve found an unorthodox way to pay their debts off.
I feel like the highest compliment I can pay an author is to say I want to read more of his stuff. In Todd Allen’s case, I had the next book in the Hardboiled Magic series in my Amazon cart the next morning.
If this sounds like your kind of bedtime reading, why not get from Amazon right here, and cause a few coins to be thrown my way in the process?
Note: No compensation was provided for this review. The book was purchased last year with my own money.