The Management Style of the Supreme Beings – Tom Holt

Tom Holt takes potentially-grand subjects and treats them as mundanely as possible. If a choir of angels attends the protagonist’s birth, he’ll focus on the difficulty of diapering a baby when there are dozens of angels in the way. It’s hard to tell why sometimes the dead-pan humor results in a highly-enjoyable book and sometimes it flops. This book worked.

God has been in the deity business too long, and he’s burnt out. So when the Venturi brothers offer to buy him out, he’s willing to listen. The Venturi brothers have their eye on the bottom line, not on good and evil. As far as they’re concerned, people can do what they like, as long as they’re willing to pay the price. Do you want to lie or cheat or steal or maim? There’s an itemized price list, and several forms of payment are accepted.

There’s one fly in the Venturi ointment. They thought they had bought the deity monopoly for Earth, but there is an entity who, even though he has no formal worshipers, has many millions of believers - especially around Christmas time. God was too cautious to try to force him out of his northern fortress. The Venturis think it’s good business practice.