I watched him struggle with the sea
I was nine-tenths of the way through shoveling my mother's driveway before it occurred to me that the flat-bladed gardening implement which I had been using to rowel up the frozen underlayer of slush from which the shovel just skidded off—it reminded me of a whaler's cutting spade—was conceivably some kind of hoe. I cannot tell if this means I will never have to settle my debts with Poseidon or if I have just incurred Demeter's eternal disappointment.

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I don't think I've even heard of the series. Does it have the kind of long arc where it matters that it doesn't stick the landing? Klas Östergren's The Hurricane Party (2007) uses a Mafia-like treatment for the Æsir of Norse myth, which I very much enjoyed.
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I'll add The Hurricane Party to the (considerable) to-be-read list!
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It's the only one of the author's novels I've read, but I liked it.