You do start in the middle of the action in this book. A bit more lead in would have been nice.

I haven't read any of the other Elfminister books, so this was probably not the best for me to start on. But this is the first one the library had, so .

I did find it mostly easy to tell when he and the devil were communicating, and when Elminister was giving up a memory. It got complicated when the devil's buddies started showing up. Who was who, and where did you come from again? But that was on the demon side; telling who was who on Elminister's side was easier.

The book is graphic in describing pain and torture. The ending and one other part seemed too magical - Elminister is reduced to literally almost nothing, then one magic spell and he's whole and restored and just hunky dory again, thank you very much, whether to be tortured all over again or to celebrate being saved. No residual problems, it seems. "Say what?" was my reaction both times.

Given a choice, I would definitely read the first three books first. Otherwise you might get lost in the who's who and some unanswered questions. I might read this again once I have finished those, and see how I like it then. ( )

Oh my gosh, I loved this book. If was refreshing in that it was not set in the usual wizard story. Being that the hunk of the story takes place in hell was intriguing. The one complaint was the dialogue between the main characters got a bit redundant. Mr. Demon repeated himself so much I just wanted him to put a sock in it. Overall a reaaly great read though. ( )