After finishing Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, I wanted the sequel immediately. Fortunately, Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know is exactly what I hoped it would be.

K.J. Parker is the writer whose plots I enjoy, but whose prose I absolutely love. His dry wit, cynical observations about people, and sharp dialogue make even the slower stretches entertaining. In this book, for example, it's sometimes more interesting to hear what Brother Desiderius would complain about next. than to know what happens next. 

He's still a sharp and entertaining narrator. A monk, an atheist, a scholar, a reluctant operative for the Church, and hopelessly in love with the fiercely devout Sister Svangerd. It's a killer combo that works beautifully. It's also fun to watching him perform increasingly ridiculous mental gymnastics to explain away the supernatural, even while demons are making his life considerably more complicated. 

The new mission is simple enough on paper - they have to recover an ancient book that was never supposed to resurface. Naturally, almost nothing goes according to plan. There are demons, impossible chases, philosophical arguments, stolen manuscripts, and enough bad decisions to keep the story moving for several hundred pages.

I don't think this book is quite as tightly constructed as some of Parker's best work. The intrigue isn't especially complicated, and I guessed where several plot threads were heading long before the characters did. But I still loved it.

Nobody writes dialogue quite like Parker. Characters can spend pages arguing about theology, history, metallurgy, or whether absolute evil is suffering from an organizational problem, and it's consistently funny and insightful. Parker has a gift for making intellectual debates sound like two very tired people arguing over whose turn it is to carry the luggage.

I also liked that the series continues asking questions about faith, morality, and whether "good" and "evil" are really as straightforward as everyone would prefer. Parker never lectures. He simply lets his characters stumble into increasingly uncomfortable situations and leaves the reader to sort out the philosophy afterward.

The relationship between Desiderius and Svangerd remains strong. If they ever admitted how much they care about each other, they'd probably both insist it was a clerical error.

This probably isn't Parker's most intricate novel, but it hardly mattered. Spending time with these characters is simply too much fun.

The Loyal Opposition has become one of my favorite new fantasy series, and this second book only confirmed it. Book three can't arrive soon enough.