The Pit: Watchmaker’s Hell, Book 1

Barnes’s debut is a disappointing, meandering story populated with a jumble of characters who aren’t sure where they are or what they’re supposed to do. The Pit is the entrance for those condemned to hell, run by Marcus, a 2000-year-old Roman. He is recruiting the newly dead to fight on his side against Virgil Offgood, a Chicago cop who controls an area of hell called the City. Deborah Molinsky, a Jewish prisoner of Auschwitz, is doing her own recruiting; she believes the residents of the Pit can be redeemed. She converts Heinrich von Helldorf, a Nazi guard from Dachau, and Misha, an Atlantic slave ship captain. Marcus, Virgil, and Deborah compete to win over London lawyer Nadia Patel, Los Angeles teenager Allison Yates, German history professor Christoph Schmidt (who believes Allison is the reincarnation of his wife), Korean housewife Yi Soo, and American soldier Avery Fox. Piecemeal worldbuilding, incomprehensible character backgrounds, the glacial pace of revelations, inconsistent points of view, and an unresolved ending jettison a promising concept. [em](BookLife) [/em]