Fiends in High Places - D. C. Farmer ***

As a big fan of UK-based urban fantasy, I'm always on the lookout for something new: Fiends in High Places promised to deliver that difficult combination of urban fantasy and humour. It has some engaging points - but on the whole doesn't quite make it.

In D. C. Farmer's world there is a small establishment that tries to operate as an immigration control for fae - creatures from other intersecting realities, often with magical abilities. The central character Matt Danmor is thrust into this unseen world when he witnesses an attempt to sacrifice one of those in control of immigration and gradually discovers that he is, himself, not just an ordinary person on the street (after falling in love with the would-be sacrifice's niece).

Unfortunately, the humour is heavy handed. At one point, for example, our hero (accompanied by a sweary talking vulture) travels to an alternate world where shops include Bloops (the apothecary), Harpy Nix, Herods, Starstrucks, Mage & Septres and Dependablehams. A certain amount of groan-inducing humour is tolerable, but it's ladled on way too heavily. This wouldn't be so bad, but there's also far too much description and inner monologue with very little happening - and the first few chapters are leaden in the slowness with which our hero gradually comes to accept what's happening.

This was by no means the worst book of its kind I have read, but it could have been so much better with sharper humour and a less introspection.

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