An exorcist’s methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out-he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person. His target, Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles.

Too bad he’s possessed.

In this pitch dark witty fantasy, Parker deftly creates a world with vivid, unbending rules, seething with demons, broken faith, and bad men. Prosper’s Demon cheerfully and acidly excavates some of Western literature’s deepest tropes-from Plato’s Philosopher King to Marlowe and Goethe on Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles-with infernal flair.