It's the story of Edward Moon, a stage magician who frequently assists the London police in their investigations. This time, he and his sidekick, The Somnambulist (a 7-foot-tall, mute, milk-guzzling, apparently unkillable fellow), are investigating the mysterious deaths of two actors, which lead them into a conspiracy involving deformed prostitutes, the bum who lives outside Moon's theater, the poetry of the recently deceased (or is he?) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the power of Love.
The opening had me hooked, one of those "Hello, I'm your unreliable narrator" things that I love so:
Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you'll believe a word of it.
Yet I cannot be held wholy accountable for its failings. I have good reason for presenting you with so sensational and unlikely an account.
It is all true. Every word of what follows actually happened, and I am merely the journalist, the humble Boswell, who has set it down. You'll have realised by now that I am new to this business of storytelling, that I lack the skill of an expert, that I am without any ability to enthral the reader, to beguile with narrative tricks or charm with sleight of hand.
And the rest of the book more than lives up to the promise of that opening. It's a darkly hilarious mishmash of genres that carefully balances its spectacular horror elements (which really are immensely creepy, particularly in the elaborate battle at the climax) with a gently mocking, affectionately parodic tone. It's Sherlock Holmes meets Wes Craven, Doctor Who meets Edgar Allan Poe -- and it's a fabulously odd piece of entertainment.
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