Dead to Me by Anton Strout

I've long had a theory that there is a Standard Ace novel, a kind of book that Ace has published again and again over the past twenty or thirty years. The Ace Standard isn't as well known or recognized as the Baen or DAW varieties -- perhaps because the Ace Standard depends more on tone than its more flamboyant competitors -- but there are some clearly defining features. An Ace Standard is a fantasy novel with a first person narrator who is solidly on the side of the angels -- he (and it usually is a he) may do edgy things once in a while, but he knows what good and evil are and he's on the side of good. The Ace Standard is generally set in the contemporary world (like Peter David's original Knight Life), but occasionally ends up in a secondary world (such as Steven Brust's early "Vlad Taltos" books). The danger of an Ace Standard is that of any standard book -- it has a slight tendency to the generic. Series can start in the land of Ace Standard and blossom into more specific worlds; Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" novels (published by Ace's Siamese twin, Roc) did just that.

I don't mean the concept of Ace Standard as a slam; just to note that it's a type, and that examples of the type can be as varied in execution as a Baen MilSF novel or a Terri Windling fairy tale can be.

Anton Strout's debut novel Dead to Me has some strong Ace Standard features: it's set in the modern world, in New York City, featuring a young psychometer (Simon Canderous) working for a secret but legitimate occult government bureau, the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. Canderous was formerly a mildly rapacious small-time dealer in collectibles and antiquities, but, after some unspecified Road-to-Damascus moment, he retired his old (and only very, very slightly evil) ways and is now cleaving to the path of Good with the fervor of a new convert.

His employer, the DEA [1], is part of the government of the City of New York, and it has responsibility for dealing with and keeping quiet pretty much everything supernatural in the city. But who the DEA is and what they do, precisely, is not entirely defined in Dead to Me; I don't think Strout has completely mapped out in his own head all of their powers and responsibilities. For example, they sometimes seem to be cops, and sometimes civil servants. If they're cops, they're awfully emotional and undisciplined cops -- not just Simon, who has the excuse that he's new to the DEA, but his partner and mentor Connor Christos, and others.

This also is a common feature of the Ace Standard: the hero is hotheadedly emotional, particularly in having easily-pushed buttons about "evil." The Ace Standard hero is Chandleresque in his chivalry and ideals without being in the least world-weary; he is pricked easily by the slights of the world, and lashes out quickly. At the same time, he is easily tongue-tied when confronting more sophisticated types -- and he's usually in opposition to them. He's prone to long speeches about right and wrong, and may have self-doubt -- let me rephrase: he's prone to acres and acres of self-doubt -- but never doubts the mission.

Canderous is this in spades, and he also has the Ace Standard hero's relationships towards women -- he loves 'em (in a totally modern, completely post-feminist, and entirely aboveboard way), but the fact that these women may be human beings with mixed emotions and motivations (possibly including things that he may call "evil") confuses and vexes him. There are two semi-love-interests for Canderous in Dead to Me -- and that's not even counting the woman he's making out with in the first chapter -- and neither of them is pure snowy white, which causes him some consternation.

This is set in a world where the supernatural is still secret, though how this borderline-competent bunch has managed that trick for so long is a valid question. In a way, Dead To Me is a lighter-hearted version of Charles Stross's "Laundry" stories -- the world here isn't being threatened by Lovecraftian horrors from beyond space, but by the kind of villains routinely defeated by The Real Ghostbusters. Not that this world doesn't have its dangers -- one character is killed, off-page, in a transparent attempt to show that things really are dangerous -- but that they're dangers that people like Canderous and his colleagues can handle.

One strangely generic element is the Secret Society of Antagonists -- pardon me, the Sectarian Defense League -- which, we are told repeatedly, is made up of "cultists." Yes, cultists. Not Satanists. Not members of any specific cult -- they don't worship Baal or Astarte or Alfred E. Newman. But cultists, full stop. You know, the kind from '30s pulp stories, who slaver over luscious blondes tied to hideous blood-stained altars while maniacal priests chant runic incantations and prepare to plunge deep the gleaming, razor-sharp sacrificial knife? That kind of cultist. Admittedly, there's some unintended humor when Canderous keeps thinking "But she's a cultist!" about his sweetie, as if he were Biff Jockwell in an only mildly progressive story of the '50s and his love were Jewish. But Strout doesn't seem to mean this as humor -- although the humorous Ace Standard is quite respectable, and Strout has a light touch in a lot of other ways -- so it just floats on, seeming to refer to something but not actually connecting.

The plot of Dead To Me involves the Sectarians, their sexy and mostly-innocent office manager, one of the recently deceased, a supposedly deadly assassin who stays in the background for several days, some background office politics (of the "my division is better than yours" type), and a big finish at a major museum. Canderous's voice is appealing, the plot moves well, and none of my quibbles rise to the level of impediments -- Dead To Me is a solid first novel, not quite as perfectly formed as one might like, but a fully entertaining example of the modern male urban fantasy. Fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files should pay particular attention to Dead To Me: Simon Canderous has a lot of the appeal and outlook of Harry Dresden. I hope and expect that future books in this series will add depth and specificity to Canderous's world, but what we have here is pretty good all by itself.


[1] I could be convinced that naming a secretive government agency the "DEA" was a kind of double-blind, or protective coloration, or even a bureaucratic mistake. ("'No, the other DEA,' I said, for about the thousandth time.") But Strout doesn't really follow any of those avenues; it's just a law-enforcement agency that has the same initials as a different law-enforcement agency. This felt like a lost opportunity, though future books could always pick up on it.