Review: Kingston Raine and the Bank of Limbo by Jackson Lear

I was kindly sent a free digital copy of this book by the author Jackson Lear for a review.  This is a funny fantasy story which continues the Kingston Raine series of books, here is my review.

When somebody is found murdered in Limbo, a place where everyone is already dead, Kingston Raine, is asked to investigate. Being an outsider to Limbo and also a fictional character, Kingston and his fellow friends must find out who committed the murder and how the Bank of Limbo is involved, which isn’t so easy when you’re famous.

‘Kinston Raine and the Bank of Limbo’ is the second book in the Kingston Raine series. The first book ‘Kingston Raine and the Grim Reaper’ was one I absolutely loved and this second instalment does not disappoint. Unlike the first book which saw Kingston go through various fiction books such as Macbeth and Don Quixote, this book’s story focussed on Kingston and his friends being in Limbo and investigating the bank there and the mysterious murder. Just like the first book this is very funny and a bit weird at the same time.

Although this is part two of the Kingston Raine series it isn’t necessary to read the first book as this stands well on it’s own. A lot of the key information that’s relevant from book one is explained in this story in a quick and easy to understand way. The story has quite a fast pace and is very funny, with a sort of British sense of dry humour. Most of the same characters from the previous book are in this, including Kingston and his girlfriend Joanna, Little John (from Robin Hood) and Catalina from Don Quixote and of course Death and Satan. To give you an idea of the humour in this book, Death is the CEO of Death Inc, is bald and wears a pin-striped suit!

As the story progresses, Kingston and his friends get deeper into the investigation and we learn more about Limbo and there’s even another chance to visit Hell. The story is all told in the third person and switches between different scenes. This makes the story fast-paced but there’s never a problem of getting lost. I like the fact that although this is a stand alone novel, it continues the stories of all the main characters. Just like before I think my favourite characters continue to be Little John and Satan. With John being a fictional character from Robin Hood he’s still very much unused to the modern world and I love the job he gets in Limbo and the strange interactions with Snowflake.

The book has a couple of uses of the s swear word but nothing else offensive (unless you don’t like fun depictions of hell and the afterlife). The story is a funny one and compelling to read and it also has a good mystery surrounding the murder in Limbo. Despite how much I liked this one though, I think it’s hard to top the previous book, maybe because there wasn’t as much of the fictional world or as many opportunities to see John fighting which is always funny. There were also large areas of characters explaining things to each other. I didn’t get lost at all during these monologues but it would have been nice to see more happening during them. However this still didn’t take away from the story which was well thought out and has a great ending.

Overall I do like this book and would read it again and recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery and funny story. You’ll especially like it if you’ve read book one I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!

Rating: 4.5/5

Review published on Goodreads, click here

Author’s website: http://www.jacksonlear.com/

Book Description:

Nothing throws the afterlife into chaos quite like an impossible murder, except for listening to Satan’s recommendation to hire an outside investigator: Kingston Raine.

As soon as Kingston and his friends take the job they realise that they have attracted the attention of a secret organisation working within the Bank of Limbo, an organisation that routinely assists the rich and nefarious in Life. What troubles Kingston is that these blackmailers and murderers are more interested in how Kingston and his friends can benefit them, and not at all concerned about having every last secret of theirs exposed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Kingston realises that he is now ridiculously famous, and the entire population of Limbo seems to know everything there is to know about him and his friends, which now puts them all in immortal peril.