This is an ambitious venture into the history of Satan. The work seeks to provide an account of the Devil's multifaceted existence, evidenced not least by the various names that he has been known by, including Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer and Belial. Almond seeks to intertwine two sides of the fiend's history: the crucial role that he plays within Christian theology, as well his place in what Almond terms ‘the history of Western intellectual thought’. Indeed, Almond discusses the paradoxical nature of perceptions of the Devil, and the theological questions that have arisen from them. For example, the Devil is viewed to be both independent of God, as a cosmic enemy who steals souls from the correct path; and yet simultaneously also under God's command, punishing on his behalf those who have strayed, and likewise subject eventually to punishment himself. Almond also argues that the Devil had a pre-Christian history, both in Judaism and in intellectual patterns of thought derived from antiquity. Almond's work explores these concepts in an accessible way. As a broad history, which seeks to be accessible to a wider audience, the work inevitably sweeps over some areas quite briefly, and can lead to some imprecise discussion. Almond's two sides of the Devil's past (Christian and ‘intellectual tradition’) seem, although he argues that they are interwoven, a little reductive, the dualism a little artificial. This superficiality is also intensified by the fact that the book draws almost exclusively on western examples of perceptions of the Devil. Some of the statements made in the book seem a little sweeping, for example Almond's claim that New Age Wicca and neo-pagan beliefs were inspired by the 1973 film The Exorcist. Another awkward moment in the work occurs when Almond considers the relationship between beliefs about Devil and perceptions of human sexuality. Although quoting from another source, he states that Heinrich Kramer's ideas about the perceived female nature of witchcraft were ‘misogynistic’, based on the notion that only women could engage in sexual acts with the Devil. In so doing, Almond seemingly skims over the complicated relationship between female sexuality, female self-perceptions, biblical tradition and witchcraft. More could have been said, too, about the Devil's recent history, as well modern fears of evil. None of this, however, distracts from the fascinating nature of the subject material, and the rich collection of examples that Almond has compiled here. An interesting book, then, which skips through the history of the Devil, and draws on examples of his guises which will amuse, shock and dismay readers in equal measure.