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Book review: Ghost Train To New Orleans by Mur Lafferty
Series: The Shambling Guides
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Orbit (March 4, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316221147
ISBN-13: 978-0316221146

The Ghost Train To New Orleans is the sequel to Lafferty’s urban fantasy novel The Shambling Guide to New York City and carries the same premise: even monsters need a travel guide. This seems especially true when the sheer number of lethal hazards that lie in wait for innocent(ish) monsters in major American cities.

The Ghost Train To New Orleans again stars Zoe, normal(ish) human and intrepid travel writer to the many different kinds of supernatural creature that dwell in the urban centers of the world. While the first book dealt exclusively with New York and spent a lot of time setting up the world, The Ghost Train To New Orleans has a far faster pace. We get put into the action almost immediately and it sets the tone for the rest of the book, there is far less scene setting needed in the second book even though the scene is a character in its own right.

Lafferty has clearly put a huge amount of work into the location research for The Ghost Train To New Orleans and The Big Easy’s character shines throughout the entire book. I liked the excerpts from the travel guide that Zoe is writing, they give the story a center that it needs given the sheer number of different problems the main character is dragged through.

If I had one complaint it’s that the main character Zoe is extremely reactive. I get the idea that she’s never going to go looking for a fight but I would have liked to have seen her take a proactive stance earlier on and to see her fight a bit more to stand up to the other beings around her, especially her friends and fellow employees. That said, Zoe’s character is otherwise extremely likable and if snarky, nerdy jokes are your thing then this is definitely the book for you.

There’s some extremely interesting worldbuilding in The Ghost Train To New Orleans that builds naturally on the first book. While I think you could read this book as a stand alone, you will get a lot more out of it if you read The Shambling Guide to New York City first. This entry into the series leans more towards horror than the first book, but it balances the horrible with the humorous well and it never felt either unbearably grim or insubstantial.

Dialogue is clearly Lafferty’s forte, and the zippy back and forth between the characters keeps the book entertaining throughout, even when there are lulls in the action as Zoe tries to keep her boyfriend Arthur from turning into a zombie. The stress levels go up as the novel goes on, and the dialogue keeps up its wit even as the characters go through hell. This is especially true for the ending which turns up the peril levels to eleven and sets Zoe and her friends up for a third installment in the series.

A fun, sometimes bloody ride through New Orleans that stands out from the first book in the series while building well on its premise I can highly recommend The Ghost Train To New Orleans to fans of urban fantasy in general and fans of The Shambling Guide to New York City in particular.

Reviewed by Andrew Jack

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Andrew Jack

Andrew Jack

Andrew Jack lives with his wife in Christchurch New Zealand and has been misusing the written word for most of his life. He even got his first rejection letter from Random House at the age of four, who kindly suggested he learn to read and write before resubmitting. A life long martial arts enthusiast, Andrew spends his time getting beaten up by his friends, writing like he’ll starve if he doesn’t and trying to stop his cats from destroying his house.