The Office of Lost and Found by Vincent Holland-Keen

Thomas Locke can find anything and works for someone who communicates with him via messages written on slips of paper.
Veronica wants him to find her husband and she willing to pay him the generous price of not shooting him to do it.
This is how we meet our two main protagonists.

As Thomas delves into Veronica’s life and her husband, he discovers a company that sell items that only cost certain parts of your psyche.
Just as you start to think, “This is getting interesting”, Thomas has solved the case and Veronica is free. For a given value of free.

That was the first shock, for me. The first half of this book is taken up by a number of smaller cases, almost short stories, that progress Thomas and Veronica’s relationship and delve into the weird world of The Office of Lost and Found.

It’s only as all the threads from the first half come together after the pair save a child and banish/kill Thomas’ employer (a place most stories would end) in the second half that the story really got going for me. I found that restarting with a new case every so often left the start of this novel very stop-start. It took me a good while to get into it.
It didn’t help that Veronica is almost defiantly unsympathetic in many ways. But it’s her caring heart that keeps you just interested enough in her to keep going.

Once we’ve set up all of the major players and underpinned that this reality is maybe just a little bit off from our own, then TOOLAF really kicks itself into a high gear and gets running.
Gods, children worshipping roadworks, the fate of everything, friendly monsters under the bed and just maybe the end of the world all come flying in with great speed to make the second every bit as engrossing as the first half was frustrating.

Thomas Locke is a fine entrant into the “weird detective” class. His methods are strange, and yet, if you’ve read Dirk Gently, quite familiar. Yes, this book is massively influenced by Douglas Adams’ quirky detective and it doesn’t really try to hide it. Instead Vincent Holland-Keen wears these influences on his sleeve and it’s all the better for it. He seems to have decided that there is room in the world for more than just Gently and his demented detective methods, and I’d have to agree.

The secondary characters are well drawn, Billy – the boy with monsters under his bed – gets the best deal of them all. But each character gets their moment to shine.

I enjoyed this book once the pieces were in place, it’s well worth the slight struggle past the necessary first half.
Definitely worth checking out.


The Office of Lost and Found can be purchased here

Serial Killers Incorporated by Andy Remic

We begin with our protagonist naked on a balcony, quite literally freezing his nuts off, while his lover performs her wifely duties with her husband. A husband who is also a gun runner and killer of at least 34 men.
It’s very quickly apparent that we are not supposed to like or admire most of the people who are going to populate this novel. And that’s fine, you don’t need to like a protagonist to want to see what happens to them. In fact a good chunk of the enjoyment of this novel is following Callaghan and his miserable efforts to work out just who is doing what to him and why.

A photographer by trade, Callaghan and his friend Jim get some of the best scoops in the journalism business by bribing, sneaking and occasionally making stuff up. So when they are led to a murder scene by an anonymous phone call, they don’t hesitate too long before checking it out.
The discovery of a brutal murder starts the ball rolling that sees Callaghan dragged further and further into a mess that he can see no way out of. By the time it’s all over a good number of people will be dead, there have been betrayals and a liberal use of expletives.

Remic writes books that don’t hang about. His prose is solid and easy to read, it’s unlikely to win any literary awards but it’s perfectly suited to this kind of story. Violence, blood and sex are his forte and he uses them well.
Remic also creates whole characters, making sure none are left as a cipher unless that’s the point of the character.
Callaghan is an utter bastard, something he takes pride in to begin with and has that self-knowledge slowly chipped at as the novel progresses. Callaghan is the type of character that is never going to be a hero in the traditional sense, in fact, in most stories about a serial killer he would die horribly and messily fairly quickly. However he is someone that you are almost fascinated to follow. He survives not by much real planning on his part, but almost feral reflexes and luck.
Surrounding him are a wide cast of some of the more twisted members of society and we get to know the motivations of each of them.

While it’s not going to be regarded as a classic of the genre, Serial Killers Incorporated does have a decent story. The final revelations may take people by surprise and if you can’t go with them then the novel is liable to lose you. I’m not going to spoil things too much here, but suffice to say, they remind me of Michael Marshall Smith’s novels.

Did I enjoy it? Yes I did, the humour works, the violence is quite lovingly and inventively described and even the sex scenes are done well.
If you like bastards doing bastardly things to each other with a smattering of sex and much use of profanity, then I think you’ll dig this.
If you don’t, then you probably won’t.


The eBook is to be accompanied by an album. Only 2 tracks were sent with my review copy. I don’t really review music because I’m not really versed in it in that way. I will say I quite enjoyed the two tracks by th3 m1ss1ng and the closest I could find in my iTunes folder to accompany them while reading were some Cooper Temple Clause tracks.



The book is available in eBook form from Anarchy Books here

Dalton Quayle Rides Out by Paul Kane

This book contains two stories of the adventurer and detective Dalton Quayle, as written by his compatriot and partner, the gun loving Dr Pemberton.

The first story is Dalton Quayle’s Wet One.
The story is quite a good one, dealing with the rise of sea-people and a creepy sea-side town. Unfortunately I had a terrible time making my through this story and all due to the huge number of punnish names given to the characters. The town is called Outsmouth where locals drink Craftylove’s Ancient Irregular, anyone who has read a decent amount of horror should be able to pick up on the reference there. If that were all then it would have been a nice nod to his inspiration, but this story doesn’t read more like that. Instead it reads like an attempt to show you how many books and films the author has read/seen. There is a three page retelling of Robert Shaw’s monologue from Jaws after a scar comparison that is a pastiche of Moby Dick, complete with Captain Abrahab and the monster Dopy Mick. With characters such as Island Police Chief Bodey (who later on is referred to as Brodey in a typo), Jacques Custarde the underwater expert, Captain Codeye who exploited children for his brand of fish food, the list goes on. Which is a real shame, because when he’s not just playing on names and riffing on other peoples stories, Paul Kane is pretty funny. Towards the end of the story everything picks up and barring the occasional distracting pun is great fun.
The problem with all of the puns and plays on names you know is that they are continually dragging out of the story. As I say, when they are left behind the story is actually a good, fun read.

The second story, Dalton Quayle Rides Out, is much better. The pun names are mostly left out and when they occur, they are spread out to lessen the distraction.
In this story Quayle goes up against a Chinese Evildoer and genius called Fe-Man-Ho and his Mini-Fe, Fok-Yu. Going from the Chinese district out to the old west, this tale romps along a good pace, demonstrating the kind of humour Tom Holt praises him for in the introduction.
The verbal gags fly quite quickly and Pemberton and Quayle make entertaining heroes.

Overall this book is quite fun. While a humorous Sherlock Holmes type lead doesn’t seem all that original, the characterisation of Quayle makes him a character you’d be happy to read the other adventures Pemberton keeps referring back to.
I only wish that the number of puns and constant references to other books and films was toned down in the first story. For me they aggravated me as I was constantly being reminded of who the characters were based on and what particular film or story was being mocked.
But then, humour is very subjective and I’m not a huge fan of puns anyway. If you’ve found the names I’ve mentioned herein gave you a chuckle, then you may well enjoy this book.

You can order it from amazon.co.uk here

Test Drive by DJ Burnham

Test Drive is the first collection of short stories by science fiction writer DJ Burnham. For a first collection, there is a very high hit ratio of really good stories.
One of the first things I noticed about the stories is that they all seem to follow a similar pattern, the first two thirds are on establishing the world and the characters and then the main thrust of the story comes in to play in the final third. In the hands of a less talented writer, this technique would make for quite a dull read but Burnham is very good. He makes his characters and story the focus of his writing, letting the ideas be a tool for the telling, rather than focus the story on the scientific idea – which makes a nice change from many other short science fiction stories I’ve read.

There’s a comfortable familiarity in his writing, the stories, while new, feel familiar. Time to Leave is probably the best example of this. It’s a story I feel like I’ve read before, but not done like this or told in this way. It was this feeling like I knew the stories that made the writing so easy to read.

Bid, One True Path, The Lighthouse Keeper and Biker’s Dozen were my four favourite stories in the collection. Bid tells the story of an auction site entrepreneur and the expansion of his gardening business into and interstellar one. I have never been interested in gardening, but this story kept me interested and entertained throughout. One True Path tells of the arrival of a religious alien race at Earth and their attempts to discover if it is a spiritual world and without need of conversion. The deciding factor in their choice appealed to me on quite a few different levels. The Lighthouse Keeper is all about setting up a lighthouse on a rogue asteroid field that is causing danger to interstellar shipping. Finally Biker’s Dozen is essentially a travelogue around an alien world after a war. The writing in this story is wonderful and very descriptive.

I have only mentioned four above, but nearly all the stories in the collection will have me reading them again. Only Blink disappointed me, as we never find out who it is that sets the chain of events in motion and while that might be the point, it irritated me. Home in Time for Christmas was probably the most disposable of all the stories in there. Even then, both of these stories are written with the same skill and care as the others.

In all this a very good collection from someone I will be keeping my eye out for. While reading this collection, it made me want to improve my own writing so that I could be as good as he is. I can’t think of a better compliment than that.

The author is donating all of the profits from the sale of this book to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

Find it on Lulu here

El Sombra by Al Ewing

Opening with the words:
The man walked across the desert.
And the desert destroyed the man.
is El Sombra, the second book in Abaddon’s Pax Brittania line.
The plot could be summed up as an unhinged Zorro fights Nazis to reclaim his town, but that would do a disservice to the outlandish imagination contained within the covers.
The origin of El Sombra is neatly delivered in a prologue where a wedding is interrupted by the arrival of flying Nazis and our hero descends into madness in the desert.
We then skip ahead 9 years, the people of the town are as nothing to their Nazi masters, viewed as little more than clockwork people, there to do their job, but not to live.
The best defined of the villains is Alexis, son of the commander, his introduction is reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, with all the references to male grooming products and the body in his bed.
It is not long before our hero arrives to stop a public execution and things just start going badly for the Nazis from here on.

One nice and inventive trick is that every Nazi killed by the hero is given a back story, some lasting only a paragraph others getting a full history. Some we feel sorry for, others less so, but each becomes a real character before being unceremoniously slain by the laughing El Sombra.
Only once does this not happen and there they are casually dismissed as chaff, not important enough to know beyond being in the way of El Sombra as he rages.

While there are no great surprises in how the plot progresses, this does not detract from the story in any way. The author bio describes it as his first penny dreadful and it reads as a great piece of pulp fiction.
The action is detailed and often entertainingly gory. There is a glee to be had at noting no two characters appear to die from the same wounds and guessing at just how El Sombra will dispatch the next.
There are some great set pieces, the highlight the attack of the ten foot tall clockwork, steam powered Nazi death robot, known as Der Zinnsoldat, the Tin Soldier.
There are suitably ironic ends for several villains, my personal favourite being the demise of the chief torturer in a new and inventive way that should bring a smile to your lips.

Never letting the story get bogged down in talk, El Sombra still manages to create a wide number of notable and memorable characters. This is a book I devoured in just under 24 hours and would recommend to any fans of slightly deranged pulp fiction.

The ending leaves it open for a follow up, but with the news that the originator of the series, Jonathan Green, will be writing all the further adventures in this world, we are unlikely to see it. A shame in my opinion.

Fruiting Bodies by Jonathan Green
Included in the book is a short story by Jonathan Green (creator of the Pax Brittania series), featuring his dandy hero, Ulysses Quicksilver.
Fruiting Bodies is set some months after the events in Unnatural History and has Ulysses investigating a strange death in the East End. A prostitute is found dead, her body covered with strange fungus.
The investigation leads him to noted botany experts and he stumbles upon other deaths.
The story is short, snappy and retains the fun of Unnatural History. Quicksilver is unable to stop charming any woman he comes across or upsetting Inspector Allardyce.

It’s a good piece of pulp fiction and it’s nice to see Abaddon putting a short story at the back rather than just the opening chapter of a novel.
The final revelation caught me slightly, which is always a nice surprise.
I am looking forward to the next book in the series. High standards have been set by all 3 stories so far, let’s hope they keep up.


You can buy El Sombra from amazon.co.uk here

Eulalia! By Brian Jacques

With this being the 18th book in the Redwall series, Jacques has settled into a comfortingly familiar style of story-telling.

For those who don’t know, the Redwall books are a cross between fantasy and medieval action/adventure stories with all of the characters being animals. Each type of animal has its own general personality, with the characters themselves being individuals. So rats, ferrets, weasels and other vermin type creatures are always the villains, roving bands of raiders or pirates. Moles are somewhat country-bumpkin like with their “boo-urr” speech patterns. Badgers are fierce warriors, otters are playful and good fighters. Hares are posh, stiff upper lip “what what” types who fight for the badger lords of Salamandastrom. My personal favourites have always been the GUOSIM – Guerrilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower. A bunch of homicidal, easily enraged shrews with rapiers.

This particular book doesn’t mess with the pattern of previous books, there are two major hero stories, we also follow the villains (2 bands of them this time) and Redwall Abbey is in danger. Like I said, it’s all very comfortable. However, I don’t read Redwall books for something new each time, just like I don’t expect an episode of CSI to turn into Battlestar Galactica and Jacques has become a master at these stories.
Each of our heroes are likable, this time a hedgehog taken in by the Abbey exiled for a season for stealing, or borrowing as he calls it. A hare called Mad Maudie, regimental cook and troublemaker, also sent away from her home of Salamandastrom on a quest.

The characters are well drawn, as I’ve come to expect from these books, and the author still has no qualms about calmly killing off one you’ve grown to like without remorse. It’s the constant sense that any of the characters could be killed that keeps it exciting.

This isn’t the strongest of the series, but it’s by no means weak. If this was your first Redwall book, I have no doubt that you would hunt down the others to read and enjoy. The story isn’t quite as dense as some of the previous ones and it felt a little rushed through to me. I’d have liked a few more events fro the heroes to battle through and the final battle doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous books.

This makes it just a solid entry to the series, without the truly memorable characters or deaths from some of the earlier books. Don’t let that put you off though, it still entertains and rattles along at a good pace. What more would you want from an adventure story for children?