Wychwood / Hallowdene

George Mann
Titan Books

I first read some of Mann's work with his 'Newbury and Hobbes' steampunk series beginning with 'The Affinity Bridge'.  They were a pretty enjoyable romp through a Britain where Queen Victoria had been mechanised and, very underused, revenants stalked the streets.  After this I read his 'Ghost' pulp hero books and his War Doctor novel, the former was a big silly romp and the latter an entertaining Doctor Who tale that never really captured the spirit of the John Hurt character.

I guess what I'm saying here is that while I've enjoyed most everything of his I've read there's usually been some niggly little thing that's, certainly not spoilt, but bugged me about them; these books are no different.

Wychwood (buy it here) is the story of Elspeth Reeves a journalist returning to the small town she grew up in following the break down of both her relationship and her career in that there London.  Immediately on arrival she is drawn into a murder case being investigated by her childhood friend, Peter Shaw.

The murder, it transpires, is part of a series with an overtly magical purpose based on a local myth and it's around the magic that the story stumbles.  What we get is a story that seems stuck between two places; neither crime nor fantasy.  I like that for the protagonists that magic is hidden, alien, unlikely, absurd even but for the perpetrator it's ridiculously easy yet that he seems to only use it against women is a niggling annoyance that wasn't addressed and I really do think should have been.

Hallowdene (buy it here) continues where the previous left off with Elspeth now more settled and ensconced in a relationship with Peter.  Like the first book here we have an odd mix of cop and horror tropes as an archaeological dig to exhume the remains of legendary local witch Agnes Levett coincides with a spate of murders in a small village.

Also, as with the previous volume, it's all a little frothy.  What you get in these books is a sort of daytime TV cop show version of a horror story, 'The Midsommar Murders' or 'Rosemary's Baby and Thyme' perhaps.  The stories are lively but there's not much here to chew on and the magic / horror elements feel just a little bit tacked on which is a shame. 

Now, you may have noticed that I try and avoid writing negative reviews here on Wyrd Britain and I don't really want you to think that this is one.  As I said I generally quite like Mann's writing, he's writing is sprightly and very readable with a love of the pulps - here as much as ever - but this particular series, despite being on the surface right up my particular street is proving to be a bit of a cul de sac and personally I think I'm done but I also think that there's a lot going on here that many of you guys with a fondness for folk horror will really dig.

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The Man From the Diogenes Club

Kim Newman
Titan Books

The debonair psychic investigator Richard Jeperson is the Most Valued Member of the Diogenes Club, the least-known and most essential branch of British Intelligence. While foiling the plot of many a maniacal mastermind, he is chased by sentient snowmen and Nazi zombies, investigates an unearthly murderer stalking the sex shops of 1970s Soho, and battles a poltergeist to prevent it triggering nuclear Armageddon. But as a new century dawns, can he save the ailing Diogenes Club itself from a force more diabolical still?
Newman’s ten mischievous tales, with cameos from the much-loved characters of the Anno Dracula universe, will entertain fans and newcomers alike.

For the last few years Titan Books have been reprinting Kim Nerwman's novels such as the Anno Dracula series, An English Ghost Story, Professor Moriarty and The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School and now they've finally got to the one I've been waiting for.

There was much to like in the first Anno Dracula book - and by much I mean loads - but the part that really resonated with me was the use of Arthur Conan Doyle's Diogenes Club as the base of the secret service under the guidance of Mycroft Holmes.  A quick search showed me that Newman had written three books around this club and that they were now commanding eye-watering prices.  Well, the first one has finally been reprinted and it was well worth the wait.

This first collection of Diogenes stories focuses on flamboyant psychic investigator Richard Jeperson as he rampages around 1970s and 1980s (and into the 90s) England battling zombie nazis, witches, golems, snowmen, ghost trains and evil geniuses.  Jepperson is a pitch perfect amalgam of all your favourite spy-fi characters such as Jason King (who he looks like) and John Steed mixed with a healthy splash of the Jon Pertwee incarnation of the Doctor and a heritage of psychic detectives and adventurers such as Thomas Carnacki and Flaxman Low.

It's a glorious romp of a book and is tremendous fun throughout.  It feels like an unapologetic return to the pulp horror supernatural shenanigans of the era of it's setting.  There is so much fun to be had here cavorting around the last quarter of the 20th century and taking in the sites and sounds of the secret history of these decades and for those of you who weren't born or were elsewhere there's even a handy glossary of some of the more particular references although - and this is something mentioned in a story ('The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train') but isn't featured in the glossary - as a Welshman and as a fan of the admittedly unattractive looking stuff I need to add that 'lava bread' (sic) is neither dry nor in fact bread but this is my tiny obligatory quibble with what is fantastic collection and a joyful mash up of all the best supernatural and sci-fi shenanigans of 60s and 70s British TV and is heartily and unreservedly recommended.

Buy it here - The Man From the Diogenes Club

Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries

Stephen Jones (ed)
Titan Books

Eighteen stories of supernatural detective fiction, featuring sleuths who investigate fantastic and horrific cases, protecting the world from the forces of darkness. Each writer offers a tale of a great fictional detective, including Neil Gaiman’s Lawrence Talbot, Clive Barker’s Harry D’Amour, and the eight-part “Seven Stars” adventure by Kim Newman (Anno Dracula).

I do love a psychic / supernatural detective.  whether it be Van Helsing, John Constantine, Carnacki or even the Doctor back when they were having fun with gothic escapades back in the mid 1970s.  I've always liked that sort of stepping outside of the normal world that weird and macabre fiction gives but equally I love a good mystery and through the years have devoured Sherlock, Marlowe and, lately, Marple adventures with relish.  So the supernatural sleuth is one of my happy places.

Jones has assembled a thoroughly enjoyable assortment of variations on the theme although with the focus very much on work produced in the later part of the 20th century,  the exception to this being one of William Hope Hodgson's Thomas Carnacki tales, 'The Horse of the Invisible'.

Kim Newman

Interwoven through the book is a serial of shorts by Kim Newman featuring various of his creations such as Charles Beauregard, Edwin Winthrop & Genevieve Dieudonne most of whom are in some way connected to his Diogenes Club books (which thankfully Titan Books have begun to rescue from overpriced eBay hell having reissued the first).  The serial travels from ancient Egypt to the near future and traces the impact of a 'jewel' named the 'Seven Stars'.  Newman is always a fun read and never more so than when he's playing with his penny dreadful / pulp novel toys and twisting them into new shapes.  This serial alone makes the book worth the cover price and it's only 'one' of the many delights inside.

The book itself opens with a fabulously informative essay on the theme of the 'dark' detective by Jones and the prologue of the 'Seven Stars' serial before we are cast into the strange world of the uncanny, except we sort of...well...aren't.  Newman's scattered story aside, of the first three tales, and with the exception of the very end of the Carnacki story, all turn out to have mundane, if not essentially identical, denouements.  Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma story, 'Our Lady of Death' and Basil Copper's Solar Pons story 'The Adventure of the Crawling Horror' both confronted by the inexplicable only to unmask it Scooby Doo style, as does Carnacki but at least there we get a fleeting and murderous clopping of hooves.

Brian Lumley

So, it's up to the marvellously monickered Manly Wade Wellman to launch us into the supernatural sphere with his tale 'Rouse Him Not' featuring his sword cane wielding occultist John Thunstone.  It's a fairly light but fun affair taken straight from the Robert E. Howard school of brawn and brawling fantasy writing.  Much more interesting is Brian Lumley's Titus Crow story 'De Marigny's Clock' (which proves to be an enjoyable little tale of crooks, clocks and comeuppance.

Pausing only swivel around Mr Newman who by this point is romping through the groovy spy-fi of the 1970s we arrive at what, for me, was the revelation of the book, R. Chetwynd-Hayes' 'Someone is Dead'.  It's not so much the story, the plot is fun and lively but the utter joy of the two investigators,  Francis St. Clare & Frederica Masters, who just burst from the page in a riot of wit and sparkle.  I adored this and wanted to read it again as soon as I'd finished it.

Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes

Brian Mooney's 'The Vultures Gather' featuring his scruffy, immoderate and slightly lazy investigator, Reuben Calloway,. alongside his priestly compatriot, Roderick Shea.  the pair are drawn into the investigation of a rich man's death thanks to a postprandial promise made by Calloway some years previously.  It's entertaining but suffers from coming after the Chetwynd-Hayes story - anything would - as it just can't match it's predecessors joie-de-vivre although I suspect a re-read will prove it's merits.

There are a couple of authors whose popularity mystifies me as I find them almost entirely unreadable, Clive Barker is one of those and he's up next. I've tried reading him on and off for 20 something years now and have always had friends who are big fans but his stuff does nothing for me and a few years ago I swore off him for good.  Today though in the shape of a short Harry D'Amour story called 'Lost Souls' I broke my promise and I'm glad I did.  There's nothing here to make me want to read more but what is here is an enjoyable pulp noir, hard boiled detective story that maybe feels a little too much part of a larger story to entirely get the juices flowing but it's fun nonetheless.

A quick leapfrog over Mr Newman as his endearing but slightly hapless Sally Rhodes investigates a missing person brings us to a rather inconsequential story about John Wayne's transvestite proclivities by Jay Russell about which I'm going to say it's brief, it's not terrible but it is brief.

Neil Gaiman

The book closes with two Newman's sandwiching a Gaiman.  In 'Bad Wolf' the eminent Neil provides a prose poem about a lycanthropic investigator named Lawrence Talbot who is hired to rid a beach of an unwelcome visitor.  Truthfully it isn't classic Gaiman but even off form he's always well worth reading.

The final two Newman's are in many ways a single piece that sees many of the story's previous characters re-united in a final climactic assault on the malevolent jewel in a cyberpunk near-future wasteland.

Jones is an anthologist with an impressive history and it shows.  With only a couple of moments where I felt his choices were a little off topic this proved to be a terrifically readable collection that had me hooked from the off and has given me lots of pointers for where to go next for more of the same.

Buy it here - Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

Kim Newman
Titan Books

A week after Mother found her sleeping on the ceiling, Amy Thomsett is delivered to her new school, Drearcliff Grange in Somerset. Although it looks like a regular boarding school, Amy learns that Drearcliff girls are special, the daughters of criminal masterminds, outlaw scientists and master magicians. Several of the pupils also have special gifts like Amy’s, and when one of the girls in her dormitory is abducted by a mysterious group in black hoods, Amy forms a secret, superpowered society called the Moth Club to rescue their friend. They soon discover that the Hooded Conspiracy runs through the School, and it's up to the Moth Club to get to the heart of it.

The last of Newman's books I read was, for me at least, at little disappointing.  Deapite being a fan of the genre I found his 'An English Ghost Story' a little underwhelming.  I think this was one of the things that contributed to me struggling to get traction with this one.  The other, and probably more likely, thing was all the pain and subsequent morphine that I was in and on at the time after breaking my hip.  So, after putting it aside for a few weeks I returned to it yesterday and read the remaining 300 pages.

Drearcliff Grange is a school for 'unusual' girls.  The daughters of criminals, spies, mad scientists (oh, and the grand-daughter of a certain time travelling alien)  and those who are gifted in some way.  Our lead is one Amy Thomsett, a moth obsessed young lady with a habit of floating up into the air when she stops concentrating on not doing exactly that.

Packed off to the school by her scandalised mother she is roomed with the bombastic 'Frecks', the tempestuous, slightly murdery and gangster obsessed Kali and fellow 'unusual', Lightfingers, with her lightning fast hands.  The four bond immediately as Amy navigates the intricacies of school life and the politics of the house system.  Soon though danger and intrigue is thrown their way and the girls have to reinvent themselves in order to save one of their number before and even bigger calamity unfolds and we get to meet the other unusuals that inhabit the school.

As with his 'Anno Dracula' series Newman has built a world where the rules are slightly off.  Here, rather than vampires, it's the pulp hero style of superheroes of the Doc Savage, Phantom variety of the type that Alan Moore pastiched in his 'Tom Strong' books or the 'Wold-Newton' series by Philip Jose Farmer.  It's linked in also with one of Newman's other book series featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Diogenes Club' which hopefully Titan Books will get around to reprinting sometime soon as the originals are too expensive for my pockets.

'The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School' though is a book that fizzes with energy and is filled with characters with quirks and kinks that make them feel alive beyond their unusualness.  It is, of course, an adventure romp but also it's a story of acceptance of both self and others and about friendship and the forming of bonds.  It is cracking good fun that manages to be both utterly 'jolly hockeysticks' and entirely St Trinian's at the same time as being fully Newman.

Buy it here -  The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

An English Ghost Story

Kim Newman
Titan Books

A dysfunctional British nuclear family seek a new life away from the big city in the sleepy Somerset countryside. At first their new home, The Hollow, seems to embrace them, creating a rare peace and harmony within the family. But when the house turns on them, it seems to know just how to hurt them the most—threatening to destroy them from the inside out.

I'm not entirely sure why but even as a fan of  both Kim Newman and of ghost stories I found this book very hard to start reading,  it just didn't appeal somehow.  But, at the third time of asking I got a some traction with it and made it through to the end over the course of a couple of evenings.

The Naremore's are a particularly dysfunctional family who move from London to 'The Hollow' a massively haunted house in Somerset.  

The Hollow had previously been the home of a popular Enid Blyton-esque children's author and much of the story is a reveal of how much of the house and it's supernatural inhabitants had made their way into her stories.

At first the house welcomes the family but soon things begin to change as the family discover that good vibes can only paper over the problems at the heart of their relationships with each other and with themselves.  As everything becomes increasingly sour and the ghosts of The Hollow change from the frolicsome sprites to more malevolent entities and the book gets increasingly dark but never manages to really get me to  immerse  myself fully into the story.  The whole thing feels just too disjointed and in the end a little preachy.

I'm going to chalk this one up as a bit - note I said 'bit' - of a miss and look forward to dipping into one of the other two Newman books on my bookshelf.

Buy it here - An English Ghost Story

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Scroll of the Dead

David Stuart Davies
Titan Books

Holmes attends a seance to unmask an impostor posing as a medium, Sebastian Melmoth, a man hell-bent on obtaining immortality after the discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus. It is up to Holmes and Watson to stop him and avert disaster...
In this fast-paced adventure, the action moves from London to the picturesque Lake District as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson once more battle with the forces of evil.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective. 

So, my guess is that David Stuart Davies is a bit of a Sherlock Holmes nut.  I've read several things with his name on and have several more waiting their time in the sun and they are all Holmes related.  A quick check of his website reveals many more strings to his bow (a Stradivarius played at night whilst pondering a tricky conundrum) but for me he's a Sherlock writer and a very good one at that.

David Stuart Davies

'The Scroll of the Dead' is an ancient Egyptian papyrus purported to contain the secret of immortality to whoever can crack it's code.  Hunting for it is a sadistic dandy by the name of Sebastian Melmoth who is determined to defeat death itself.  Through a tangle of events Holmes finds himself increasingly drawn into the hunt for the scroll as a trail of murders leads him further into it's mysteries and the obsessions of those surrounding it.

It's a fairly faithful Holmes tale with a hint of the supernatural about it although the arch-rationalist is having none of that in his pursuit of his quarry.  There are moments when I think DSD left Holmes uncharacteristically wide open and defenceless (the confrontation in the cellar for one) which is too out of character but for the main part Davies knows his characters and has created a very readable Holmes pastiche.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The War of the Worlds

Manly W. Wellman & Wade Wellman
Titan Books

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed, long out-of-print detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.
Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger and Dr. Watson meet their match when the streets of London are left decimated by a prolonged alien attack. Who could be responsible for such destruction? Sherlock Holmes is about to find out...
Manly and Wade Wellman’s novel takes H.G. Well’s classic story and throws Holmes into the mix, with surprising and unexpected results.

American father and son writing team conspire to mix the era's two greatest creations by setting Holmes, Watson and Professor Challenger (hero of Doyle's The Lost World) against those dastardly 'Martian' chappies.

The story is split into several parts with the perspective shifting throughout giving us tales of daring-do from Holmes, Challenger and then Watson for the last half of the novel at which point he takes over relating the tale.

It was solidly written and an enjoyable enough read. The characterisation of Holmes was way off portraying him as a friendly genius rather than the abrupt, rude and rather arrogant Holmes we know and love. He is however bursting with observations, intimations and deductions, as he should be. Challenger is the foil to this though as his egotism is so extraordinarily rampant that perhaps Holmes needed to be defanged. No point in defanging Challenger I suppose as readers are more likely to have Holmes as a reference point when venturing into these pages than the more obscure professor. Watson is very much in his bumbling persona here which is a shame as I always thought there was more to Watson than was often made of him in the non-canon or movie representations.

The one aspect of the book that I truly disliked though was the romance between Holmes and Mrs Hudson. I thought it was a nonsensical idea that only served to pad a thinly thought out plotline. Other than that a fun afternoon's read.

Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles

Kim Newman

Titan Books

Imagine the twisted evil twins of Holmes and Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Prof. James Moriarty - wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian 'Basher' Moran - violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. Unravelling mysteries -- all for their own gain.

I’d been waiting to read this since I read Newman's fantastic 'Anno Dracula' last year.  It turned out I had already read a chapter from it on the BBC Cult Holmes site (see below).  It was a story about Irene Adler getting one over on Moriarty and Moran and I really dug it.  I remember thinking at the time that I could have done with more of the same.  Turns out there’s a book full.  

Like the Holmes stories this is told via the companion, in this case Sebastian Moran and his move from trouble making Colonel to right hand man to the Napoleon of crime.  The stories themselves are pastiches / homages of the Holmes (and others) tales such as Baskerville / D’Uberville and the Red Headed League / Red Planet League, the latter being my favourite part of the book as it was beautifully done.

Watson was a bit maligned but then again Moran maligns everyone and is hardly a reliable narrator.  Moriarty is utterly despicable and irredeemably conceited; his contempt for Holmes after they meet is palpable.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  Newman is pretty ensconced these days as one of my favourite authors and this was a glorious read.

Buy it here - Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the DUrbervilles (Professor Moriarty Novels)
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If you'd like to read the chapter I mentioned above - A Shambles in Belgravia - then you can do so at this link -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/sherlock/shamblesinbelgravia1.shtml

Anno Dracula

Kim Newman
Titan Books

It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.
Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.
This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

Wow! Now that was a trip worth taking. Newman's reinvention of the Dracula mythos, indeed the whole vampire mythos, is a sumptuous and beautifully literate experience.

The basic conceit is simple. What if van Helsing and his followers had failed to stop the Count and he had fully implemented his plan to conquer and rule Britain? Here his marriage to Queen Victoria has brought all of the famous vampires out of hiding and has led to the adoption of vampirism by many within the country from politicians to beggars. Into this society comes the fear and outrage engendered by a spate of murders of vampire whores in Whitechapel by a killer christened first 'Silver Knife' and later, more famously (or infamously) 'Jack the Ripper'.

Newman makes no attempt to hide the identity of his ripper, it's one of the first things the book divulges and instead we are allowed to view, Columbo style, the slow advance of Charles Beauregard, agent of the Diogenes Club, as he investigates and eventually solves the crimes.

This is secondary however to the changes in both society and the individuals around Beauregard. The novel is bigger than a mere whodunnit. There is, in the great spirit of the Diogenes Club's most famous member (along with his brother and his author), a plan most devious, a plot most wonderful and a scheme most subtle that only the most indolent (no offense to Mr. Newman) could have conceived of it.

It's wonderfully written with subtle changes of pace and tone which carry you along as much as the plot. Newman's writing was only known to me through his articles in Empire and his excellent book on Apocalypse Movies so this was a real revelation and a joy from start to finish.

Buy it here -  Anno Dracula (Anno Dracula 1)