I alluded to this book yesterday, but lovers of Victorian crime fiction, steampunk, the X-Files, super heroes, Lovecraftian horrors and other oddities will get a thrill out of The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club (Monkeybrain Books), a new collection of short stories by Kim Newman.
Sherlock Holmes fans will recognize the name of the Diogenes Club, the elite, nearly silent establishment favored by Mycroft Holmes, which we got a couple of glimpses of in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Kim Newman draws in characters from history, fiction and his own creations from other books in this jolly collection of short stories, where the members of the club serve as a type of super-secret service, fighting against dangers from beyond the earth. The stories stretch from the end of the 19th century up until the late 1970s and the storytelling style changes with the times, such as a hardboiled tale of the Elder Gods set in the 1940s.
I've been a fan of Newman's for quite a few years, especially his similar Anno Dracula novels (fictional and real characters interact in a world where Dracula was not defeated and has gone one to take over the British Empire). Even if the characters caught in the cross-currents (a couple even show up from novels Newman wrote in the Warhammer fantasy gaming world) fit in well with the others. Newman draws the characters extremely well (Conan Doyle makes for a great supporting player in one tale) and the tales themselves are constructed quite well. Once you get past the cultural clutter (one of the later stories, for example, includes the Manson Family and Lon Chaney Jr.), Newman's story are rock solid, full of interesting twists and turns and an energy that never flags.
New Link (a talkinbroadway one should be coming along soon as well):
And, oh dear, Heath Ledger is dead.
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