Review: Devil’s Luck by Carolyn Crane

I picked up Mind Games, the first book in Carolyn Crane’s Disillusionists series, on a whim a few years ago. Little did I know that I had inadvertently found one of the most creative, unique, and unpredictable urban fantasy series to date. It’s been a long wait for the third book in this trilogy to be released, made even longer by the fact that the print release date is still months away. Yet while I haven’t yet finished reading Justine’s story (which, having ended on a brutal cliffhanger after Double Cross, has made the waiting

Devil's Luck by Carolyn Crane

torturous), it’s Simon that I’ve yearned to revisit the most. Ever since his first barbed exchange with Justine, Simon’s sass and swagger have won me over more so than any other character in the series, and most in the genre. Thus, while I could force myself to put off reading Head Rush until it’s available in hard copy, there was no way that I could deny myself Simon’s story. And I don’t regret my eagerness one bit.

Though Simon has masqueraded as an enigma throughout the series, one thing that I knew for certain was that his seemingly uncaring facade was carefully crafted to hide something much more complex from prying eyes. Devil’s Luck lets us behind those walls he’s constructed without knocking them down. Simon stays true to himself throughout, yet the insight we get into the evolution of his character and his development over the few days in which the story takes place seem so very right. We might not have come close to guessing the reasons he acts as he does, but once we find out, the knowledge nestles so perfectly within the mold he has created that he transforms from a complex character into a person.

Many authors struggle to craft love interests to match already established characters, yet Crane has managed to provide Simon with a true equal in Fawna, and she only took sixty pages to do it. Fawna is a delightful magpie of a character, her idiosyncrasies and compulsions layering just heavily enough to allow her to stand on her own two feet without making her a cartoon. Fawna is pushed to the limit of believability, yet she never falls over the edge into caricature, and it’s this exuberant excess that makes her so perfectly matched for Simon.

I won’t say much more for fear of giving too much away, but suffice it to say that Crane has given Disillusionists fans a taste of where this series could go in the future if she wished to explore her world for a bit longer. I’ll be first in line (well, perhaps second after Simon) to implore her to take that risk.