Kim Newman

What would happen if Van Helsing had failed and Dracula had survived?

Finally found this book as a result of doing recent TBR culls and decided to read ahead of listening to "Dracula" on the Craftlit (http://www.craftlit.com) podcast.

It's Victorian England, Vampires are an established fact, and more and more people are "crossing over" to the Undead. Dracula is now the Prince Consort, married to a now un-dead Queen Victoria. His dirty blood line is being passed down into the lower dregs of society, into the prostitutes and lowlifes.

A killer, known as "The Silver Knife" has been killing vampire prostitutes in the fog bound London, and the newly dead Lestrade asks for help from an older Vampire to help investigate the killings. Meanwhile, the secret Diogenes Club sets its own "warm" investigator to persue his own inquiries. Soon they join forces to progress to find the killer who has been renamed in the press as "jack the ripper". It ultimately comes to a face off with a Dracula and his followers looking as you've never seen him before

Lots of fictional and non fictional characters have been included in the story. The Chinese elder vampire subplot I thought was a little redundant and could easily have been dropped - a lot of wordage was wasted purely to show how strong Genevive was (and how she recovered from her injuries). I think it could have been dropped in favour of the ending with Dracula.[return][return]Otherwise I think this is perhaps the best of the vampire books I've read. Certainly better than Twilight (spits into corner). I'll be interested to compare it to the original.… (mer)

Amanda Thomsett is now in the Fourth Form at Drearcliff Grange School and she has been chosen to compete in the Great Game, in which teams from each of a number of special schools compete to find hidden objects in London. After recovering enough of the objects to win the game and restore the pride of the school, she is tricked out of her find and instead the school loses. Amy and her teammates are bitterly disappointed, but not more so than their schoolmates, who show their disdain in various ways. Although this is a difficult time for Amy, she has only just begun to face a hard year, particularly when the Broken Doll begins appearing in her dreams and then in real life…. This is a sequel to Kim Newman’s “The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School,” and carries on the combination of genres that he displayed so well in that book - horror tropes and British girls’ school fiction, in this case set between the Wars. There are a huge number of characters in the book, which can be confusing because all of the school girls have their given names, nicknames and sometimes other monikers too, but fortunately only a handful of them are really central to the story and those are easy to keep straight. Mr. Newman also throws in references to some of his other work, in particular the Diogenes Club stories, but I don’t think the reader has to be familiar with those tales to get this one. Probably reading “The Secrets of….” first would be sensible, however; and I suspect, with so many characters left unexplored, we may see a third volume one day. Recommended.… (mer)

Los Angeles, 1930s: Billy Pratt has changed his name and found fame and fortune as Boris Karloff, while novelist Raymond Chandler has published short stories in Black Mask and other magazines and is about to publish “The Big Sleep.” They are friends, having attended the same posh English school, and they are both also friends with Joh Devlin, a district attorney and private eye; the latter is investigating the mysterious Home family and their attached medical clinic. When Billy and Ray are summoned to a pier where a body without a head has been taken out of a submerged car - Joh’s submerged car - and, impossibly, a young woman is found alive in the trunk, they feel honor-bound to investigate on their friend’s behalf, regardless of the dangers involved…. This is a stand-alone novel by Mr. Newman, who is perhaps best known for his wonderful Anno Dracula series; he also knows a whole lot about Hollywood history, and this book is proof of that. There were times while reading this when I felt that he was kind of showing off his film knowledge, but for the most part, I just enjoyed the hard-boiled atmosphere, the very strange world that is LA between the wars and the host of supporting characters, from Marx Brothers knock-offs to Chandler’s cat. This book is a lot of fun, though the squeamish might be warned that it’s very violent; recommended!… (mer)