REVIEW | Dancing on the Head of a Pin: A Remy Chandler Novel by Thomas E. Sniegoski (Roc)

This is the second Remy Chandler novel which is the follow-up to the great series opener A Kiss Before the Apocalyse. Sniegoski is still a fairly new writer to me even though he has been around for more than a decade, although the Remy books are his first solo foray into adult books as he is very well known for his YA Fallen series.

Dancing on the Head of a Pin sees Remy Chandler, also known as Remial of the angel host Seraphim, getting sucked into more of the heavenly host's business. After losing his human wife Remy is still going through a lot of grief. He is struggling to hold on to his humanity as his great link has left him. I love the Remy character and how Sniegoski has built him up with a better sense of humanity than most people posses. Marlowe, Remy's always lovable dog, does a great job of keeping Remy connected to the human world, but after releasing his angelic nature Remy is finding it harder and harder to keep his thoughts in the human world.

Remy starts off by investigating the selling of angel organs by a group of the Fallen. Remy eventually finds the angel in question and witnesses him dying. Remy feels obligated to tell the group of Nomads the angel came from about his demise. The Nomads are another sect of Angels who sat out the Morningstar's war with heaven, while the Fallen are the angels who fought on the Morningstar's (Devil) side. They have no place in heaven nor hell and have lived on the earth for a millennia contemplating what they should have done during the great war.

Remy is soon hired by an old wealthy collector of antique weapons to recover a special group of weapons recently stolen from him. Remy learns the weapons are the legendary pitiless weapons. These are weapons of great strength more than equal to any other ever created. Remy uncovers the first of the pitiless weapons, which leads him into the deeper and darker mysteries of why the weapons were stolen and what their true purpose is. The weapons don’t get much play until the end of the book are used very swiftly and could have easily been over done given their strength.

Dealings with the Fallen and a Nephlim bring out more players in the game including Hellions. Hellions are kind of like giant evil hyenas who keep things inline over Hell and its inhabitants. Sniegoski keeps surprising me with the myriad of angelic creatures and sects involved. Hopefully he can keep this up in further books. Remy eventually uncovers who is behind all of the happenings and what they are planning The ending wasn't quite what I expected, but it worked really well, especially in setting up bigger events for future books. Sniegoski almost makes we want to go back and read the bible for pure entertainment given the cast of characters and creatures he employs. I give Dancing on the Head of a Pin 8 out of 10 hats.

It is definitely advisable to read A Kiss Before the Apocalypse first, which was just released in Mass Market format, although Dancing could be enjoyed on its own.

I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for the next Remy book and I'll probably check out some of the author's older offerings as well. Also worth reading is Mean Streets the novella compliation that includes a Remy story about solving the murder of Noah and a good Dresden Files story.

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