Remy Chandler Books In Order

Publication Order of Remy Chandler Books

Remy Chandler was an angel known as Remiel, who is one of the Seraphim. He’s not a fallen angel, he chose to come down to Earth after the deadly war with Lucifer. Remy decided that he did not want to be an angel, but instead wanted to try living among humans. He adjusts quite well. He finds love, a good job and has good friends. He can talk to animals, Remy is fluent in a lot of different languages, plant hypnotic suggestions in people’s minds, he can also read minds, and can turn himself invisible. Remy has the ability to turn any metal blade into a holy sword. He has his black Labrador, Marlowe to keep him company too.

He’s also not allowed to tell anyone about his past as an angel, but a cop friend named Steven Mulvehill and his wife Madeline know, Madeline he told a lot more things about his previous life. The cop knows that he is an angel and is content with that information.

The series is considered urban fantasy, noir, and detective thriller. His interactions with animals provide some much needed comic relief. The series takes place mainly in Boston, Massachusetts and Heaven and is set mostly in the present tense, but will often shift in time to fit the story Sniegoski is trying to tell. The stories are told in a shifting third person narrative, told from the point of view of Remy, his dog Marlowe, and whomever the villain happens to be in the book.

A Kiss Before the Apocalypse, released in 2008, kicks off the series featuring Remy Chandler. He has been wandering the Earth for about 6,000 years and eventually turns to being a private detective. A former angel adjusts to life on Earth among humans. But when the Angel of Death, Israfil, goes missing, he’s pulled right back into his angelic life by the people he used to work with in Heaven. He knew something was wrong when two people who had died kept breathing; when he gets visited by members of the Seraphim, he realizes it’s because the Angel of Death hasn’t been taking souls.

The second book in the series, Dancing on the Head of a Pin, released in 2009 is about Remy devoting his life to being a private investigator, and taking on very dangerous cases involving his previous life and the supernatural. In this book, the angel in him, and the human he has become have split to the point where there are two aspects to him: the human half and the angel half. And the angel half wants out. Powerful weapons, known as “The Pitiless” have been stolen from a collector of suspect and dark antiques, named Alfred Karnighan, weapons that could threaten life on both Heaven and Earth. These are evil artifacts that came from Heaven. It’s very important for Remy to get the weapons back, not just because he’s being paid to do so, but before anything bad can happen with them.

The main goal of all the villains, it seems, is to start up the war that Lucifer started all those years ago. Remy spends most of his time battling these demons, so that another war is not started. Partly because one war was enough for him and another because no one should have to fight in a war like that again. Him and his friends who also fought in it, have still yet to recover from the effects from the war.

This series has been praised for its ability to feature scenes that are funny, inventive, heartbreaking, and unsettling and the way it can go back and forth between the different elements without trying. The first book got praise for it’s use of angelic lore, not just telling the story of a missing angel of death, but doing a lot of research the story is not cliched but original. Fans have also said in a world where there are scores of urban fantasy novels out today- especially those that include private investigators, this is one series you will not want to miss. A series that you will want to race through to find out what happens next. Vivid scenery in these books will keep you glued to the pages wondering what will happen next.

He has a wife named Madeline, whom we meet in 1945 when he tries to find a secretary, and later dies of cancer at the end of the first book. At the time of her death, they had been married for about fifty years or so. As the series goes on, he eventually moves on from his wife dying, getting a girlfriend named Linda, who even Marlowe loves. He also is able to let the angel in him out, whereas in the earlier books, he represses it.

It’s interesting to see a character such as Remy, who fought in a war as an angel. Most angels, you would think, have it easy, but not Remy. He deals with post traumatic stress disorder after having to relive the horrors he faced six thousand years before. Also, it is nice to see an immortal try and live as well interact in a world with mortals, you would think he would not want to get involved with them, just to avoid having to watch them die, but he really is embracing the human side of him. Part of that involves getting your heart broken by marrying a mortal woman.

A pilot script was ordered by NBC in 2013 but plans beyond that to take the series and bring it to life have not been furthered. Early plans for the show included it being a procedural, I assume each episode would be a different case for Remy to take on and by the end solve; it would also feature some comedy.

This series is for lovers of the urban fantasy/detective noir genre; fans of the Dresden Files, Highlander, Anita Blake series, Merry Gentry series, Greywalker series, Supernatural, and The Nightside series will enjoy.

Well known writer of comic books, contributor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and young adult novelist Thomas E. Sniegoski writes the series, which so far has seven novels and two short stories.