Greedy Pigs: A Sin du Jour Affair
"The thing forces its way out of the president-elect's body, through his unbuttoned shirt, and unfurls down his body.
Lena prepares to look away, jaw clenched, but she stops.
It's a ladder.
It's a tiny rope ladder."
With the quality of the series so far, it would be hard for Matt Wallace to top his other entries in his Sin du Jour series of urban fantasy novellas, but with Greedy Pigs he may have outdone himself. The quote above is barely a highlight of the inventiveness he shows as he continues the story of a specialized catering company that, well, caters to the supernatural, the paranormal, and the otherworldly.
The series has been building to this point, slowly revealing the depth of the world that sous chef Lena Tarr has found herself thrust into. A world that is hidden by shadow organizations, by goblin cabals and demon clans, by a nefarious government agent, and by magics that no mortal could possibly hope to understand.
Yet despite the use of tried and true tropes (i.e. the goblin cabals and demon clans; incubi and succubi; a mysterious, magical old woman, etc.) that Wallace introduced readers to in the previous novellas, he has managed to come up with fresh idea after fresh idea.
Greedy Pigs delivers one of the freshest ideas that has come out of the aftermath of the 2016 election debacle. And he manages to do it without saying a single name or without hammering the reader over the head with political rhetoric. Can the reader guess where Wallace stands on the issue? Sure. Will it turn off readers that may have differing opinions? No. A tribute to Wallace's skill as a storyteller and skilled navigator of the political cesspool the country has become.
However, Greedy Pigs is not a political novella at all. This installment explores the depths of the friendships and relationships that the characters have forged over the previous four novellas. It is about heart, not hate, and takes the reader through the minds of the many characters as they try to figure out their place in a world that has gotten increasingly more insane over time. Which is saying a lot considering the aforementioned goblin cabals and demon clans.
As the fifth entry in the series, it will not take much convincing to get readers to pick up this book. Wallace already has an audience hooked, and as long as he continues the quality of prose and storytelling that he has established with this series then it will be impossible to disappoint. Greedy Pigs delivers on everything that readers are hoping for with Sin du Jour.