I’ve been told to go to Hell more times than I can count. But this time I’m actually going. My name’s Bobby Dollar, sometimes known as Doloriel, and of course, Hell isn’t a great place for someone like me—I’m an angel. They don’t like my kind down there, not even the slightly fallen variety. But they have my girlfriend, who happens to be a beautiful demon named Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands. Why does an angel have a demon girlfriend? Well, certainly not because it helps my career. She’s being held hostage by one of the nastiest, most powerful demons in all of the netherworld—Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. He already hates me, and he’d like nothing better than to get his hands on me and rip my immortal soul right out of my borrowed but oh-so-mortal body. But wait, it gets better! Not only do I have to sneak into Hell, make my way across thousands of miles of terror and suffering to reach Pan- demonium, capital of the fiery depths, but then I have to steal Caz right out from under Eligor’s burning eyes and smuggle her out again, past demon soldiers, hellhounds, and all the murderous creatures imprisoned there for eternity. And even if I somehow manage to escape Hell, I’m also being stalked by an undead psychopath named Smyler who’s been following me for weeks. Oh, and did I mention that he can’t be killed? So if I somehow survive Hell, elude the Grand Duke and all his hideous minions and make it back to the real world, I’ll still be the most hunted soul in Creation. But at least I’ll have Caz. Gotta have something to look forward to, right? So just pour me that damn drink, will you? I’ve got somewhere to go. “When I heard that Tad Williams was writing an urban fantasy novel, I got all tingly. Now I’ve read it, and it’s even better than I’d dared to hope. It’s snarky, fast-paced, and above all, original . You should be tingly, too.” —Patrick Rothfuss, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Name of the Wind   “A noir fantasy series with a dark and thrilling story of Heaven and Hell battling for human souls. Exhilarating action, fascinating characters, and high stakes will leave the reader both satisfied and eager for the next installment.” — Publishers Weekly , Starred Review   “Fans as well as urban fantasy enthusiasts will enjoy Williams’s take on Heaven’s less desirable places as well as his wry humor and keen insights.” — Library Journal , Starred Review   “With a hint of detective noir, a colorful cast of characters and fast-paced, witty dialogue, The Dirty Streets of Heaven is a fantastically fun read .” —Amazon.co.uk Editors’ Pick   “ Delicious, crunchy, Hellish fun .... Bobby’s odyssey makes for a compelling, page-turning experience, chock-full of visceral sights and sensory overload.” —Tor.com Tad Williams  is a California-based fantasy superstar.  His genre-creating (and genre-busting) books have sold tens of millions worldwide.  His considerable output of epic fantasy and epic science fiction series, fantastical stories of all kinds, urban fantasy novels, comics, scripts, etc., have strongly influenced a generation of writers.  Tad always has several secret projects on the go. 2016 will see the debut of a number of them; March 2017 brings  The Witchwood Crown , the first volume in the long-awaited return to the world of the Memory, Sorrow & Thorn novels. Tad and his family live in the Santa Cruz mountains in a suitably strange and beautiful house. Prologue: Welcome Mat A MOMENT COMES in pretty much everyone’s life, or afterlife in my case, where they can’t help but wonder, What the fuck am I doing here? I have more of those than most people (a couple a week, on average) but I’d never had one quite like this before. See, I was just about to walk into Hell. Voluntarily. My name is Bobby Dollar, or sometimes Doloriel, depending on the company I’m keeping. I’d arrived at this ugly spot by elevator—a long, long ride down that I may or may not tell you about at some point. I was also wearing a body that wasn’t my own, and all my information about the place came from a rogue guardian angel whispering in my mind while I was sleeping. Not that I had learned much useful stuff from her. In fact, most of it could be summed up with the simple phrase, “You can’t even guess how bad this is going to be.” So there I stood, just outside Hell, at the foot of the Neronian Bridge, a featureless, flat span of stone that stretched over a chasm so deep that, if we had been on ordinary old Earth, the hole would probably have gone all the way through the planet and out of the other side. But Hell isn’t on ordinary Earth and this pit wasn’t bottomless—oh, no. See, at the bottom, impossible miles and miles below me in the darkness, the really bad shit was going on. I could tell that because of the faint sounds of screaming. I couldn’t help wondering how hard those folks had to be screaming to be heard that far. Also, what exactly was being done to them to make them scream like that? Already I was asking questions with