Rating: 
Summary: Harry Potter Meets Cthulhu
Review: I bought this book because I like Lovecraft and Doyle, and Harry Houdini was my childhood hero. I didn't expect great literature, just a good yarn. I read a lot of historical novels and a lot of horror and enjoy it. But not this. This is one of the most poorly written novels I have read in some time. It read like those cheap paperbook book versions of movies you see at the drug store. The point-of-view character seems to be Doyle, but we get in his head only a couple times. Otherwise, we are just like a movie audience--sitting and watching the action being described, not experiencing it, as is the case with a real novel. There was no characterization at all except for a NY cop whom the author couldn't decide was Irish, Yorkshireman, or East Ender, based on his slippery accent. What he was doing in NY is unknown. Everyone else was pretty much indistinguishable and seemed to have nothing to do with their real historical counterparts. You could almost see Whoopi Goldberg playing Marie Laveau in this thing.The other problem was that anachronisms abounded in the book. It was supposed to be 1919, but there were historical howlers everywhere, such as "security personnel," razor wire, and women wearing high heels, just for starters. You never once got the sense of actually being in Old New York, as is the case with a good historical novel like Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker (*definitely* a ripping good yarn - about the Irish draft riots in NYC). Apparently this author looked up some information about 1919 automobiles and decided that was enough historical detail. It was very obvious that the only reason why this book was published at all is because the author is a Hollywood hotshot. Well, he should stick to what he knows, because he sure don't know novel. If you want a good read combining Lovecraft and Doyle, try Shadows Over Baker Street, ed. by Michael Reeves, a book of stories combining Holmes and the Mythos. Now THOSE are ripping good yarns.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks something
Review: I bought this book because of its interesting cast of characters and also plot. However, although the book does start off rather promisingly, it kind of loses steam abt halfway through, and just meanders along after that. The characters, who comprise such real-life notables like Arthur Conan Doyle, HP Lovecraft, Marie Leveau, and Houdini, don't really bond together as the secret society known as the Arcanum, and makes you what brought them together in the first place. The strange demons that are mentioned in the book arent really fleshed out either, in terms of characterisation and motivation. I feel the author has potential, but needs to sharpen his skills in order to make his stories more compelling.
Rating: 
Summary: Unrelenting entertainment
Review: I saw this book in the bookstore and was intrigued by the description of the story and the promise of something both historical and supernatural. I was a little nervous because Wheeler is a first-time novelist, but I took a flyer and bought it. Boy, was THAT the best decision I made this week! THE ARCANUM is a rip-roaring good read! I can see how Wheeler has been making a living in Hollywood. This read like a big summer movie -- fast-paced, smart, with memorable characters and a great ending. It fairly drips with inventive, tactile description -- you literally feel transported back to the post-WWI era. I put it easily on par with THE ALIENIST, but in the end I found ARCANUM to be more entertaining and less twisted. The best part of the book are the characters... people you know from history interacting in ways you would never expect. The creepy, supernatural components are made oddly more real by the well-researched historical detail. Unfortunately, with THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN stinking up theaters last year, I doubt Hollywood has the courage to make this into what would undoubtably be a better movie. Bottom line -- this is a great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Too bad, Mr. Wheeler
Review: I usually love books set in this time period. Not this one.
With a cast of characters including Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini, I thought it would be great! Turned into a boring read. Oh, well, I'll look forward to the next Holmes novel.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad, Mr. Wheeler
Review: I usually love books set in this time period. Not this one.
With a cast of characters including Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini, I thought it would be great! Turned into a boring read. Oh, well, I'll look forward to the next Holmes novel.
Rating:
Summary: Obvious attempt at selling a novel to the movies
Review: I wish writers who attempt to write "historical" thrillers would take the time to READ a book that was actually written and published in their chosen era. This is an awfully contemporary 1919. "Don't blow my cover" one of the cops says at one point in the book. When Wheeler attempts to write period dialogue he resorts to bad clichés or catch phrases that belong to the 21st century. Lazy writing, I'd say. And unimaginative to boot. The book is filled with laughable anachronisms and outright errors (for example: Lady Doyle was an occult -- she was a practitioner of automatic writing and a book was even published about her talks with her "contact"). Wheeler obviously is having fun with all real personalities of the period, but I was getting tired of the overpopulation of real people and how they all seemed to have interchangeable personalities and their contemporary attitudes were increasingly annoying. It seemed like he couldn't create any fictional characters of his own. He fails miserably as a novelist. The book is really screenplay disguised as a novel - plenty of snappy and "hip" dialogue, an overabundance of action sequences, lots and lots of gore and violence. But a novel? No. There have been countless books using Doyle and Houdini as detectives of sorts. "The List of Seven" is far better than this book. And the novels of Daniel Stashower that feature Houdini and his brother Hardeen are immensely better. Wheeler really doesn't know much about his subjects but slides in so many references he thinks he does and he thinks he can fool his readers as well. However, anyone who has read in-depth biographies and/or the letters of these people (Doyle, Lovecraft, and Houdini) knows that these men are much more interesting and colorful than the caricatures to which Wheeler has reduced them.
Rating:
Summary: History, mystery, and dark fantasy combine in a fine tale
Review: In 1919 London, a car full of young people runs over an old man and with his dying breath he says "He's in my mind" and then says Arcanum. The Ministry of Munitions Winston Churchill notifies Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that Konstantin Duvall is dead. Duvall was a mage and a mystic, an explorer and collector of all things occult. He kept many secrets one of which, The Book of Enoch, the third part of the Bible that was thought to be erased from existence in the first century, was stolen from its hiding place by a practitioner of the dark arts. Doyle goes to America where he brings together the rest of the members of THE ARCANUM, Harry Houdini, H.P. Lovecraft and the powerful voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. They must find the missing book and the killer. The perpetrator is a powerful mage who practices the black arts and is able to elude THE ARCANUM. They meet on his terms as he is able to spring a trap that has Houdini in jail and the rest of the group running from the law while guarding an Angel who doesn't know how to get home. History, mystery, and dark fantasy combine to make THE ARCANUM a noteworthy book, a pop icon and a source for a good movie similar to the League of Distinguished Gentlemen. Historical figures are brought together in a time when the forces of darkness threaten the world, setting up the classic good versus evil confrontation. Thomas Wheeler's debut novel totally enthralls the readers with another perspective on the evil forces that threaten this world making the horror feel new and exciting. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: better concept than execution
Review: It's a nice concept. Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, HP Lovecraft, and Marie Leveau are part of a secret society of demon-busters dedicated to fighting incursions of the Lovecraftian mythos into our world. There are cameo appearances by famous mystics A.E Waite and Aleister Crowley. The problem is that first-time novelist Wheeler isn't really up to the task of fleshing out all of these colorful characters. Conan Doyle sort of works as a real-world incarnation of his literary creation and Houdini is not bad, but HP Lovecraft rings false as some kind of steampunk technomystic, and voodoo queen Leveau comes across surprisingly bland. There are also some serious anachronisms. At one point, Lovecraft is described as using a "transistorized" device. Transistors? In 1919?
Rating: 
Summary: One Heck of a Ride
Review: It's been awhile since I've read a book that is more fun than this one. Starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a better sleuth than Sherlock Holmes, this novel takes us into New York City of 1919 for a mystical mystery that is exciting enough that I nearly missed my subway stop reading it. I can't remember the last time that happened. Doyle becomes the leader of a group of spiritualist crime-fighters including H.P. Lovecraft, Marie Laveau and Harry Houdini when the founder of the Arcanum is killed over a book that may bring about the end of the world. In trying to solve the murder and recover the book, the members of the Arcanum discover more than they (or we) would ever expect. Or that I would want to give away in a review. Mr. Wheeler clearly has a talent for characterization. All the members of the Arcanum are wonderfully drawn. And each of them has moments worthy of their skills. Houdini's rescue of Lovecraft from the insane asylum, Laveau's encounter with Beltran and Lovecraft's conversations with Crowley are all scenes that will stay with me. Granted, this novel is a flight of pure fantasy and it has its weaknesses. I didn't get as much of the sense of old New York in this novel as I had hoped. Also, it reminds me a lot of that X-files episode about the nephalim--Mr. Wheeler's movie & TV pedigree is pretty obvious. Still, I was willing to forgive a lot because this novel is a heck of a fun ride.
Rating:
Summary: One Heck of a Ride
Review: It's been awhile since I've read a book that is more fun than this one. Starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a better sleuth than Sherlock Holmes, this novel takes us into New York City of 1919 for a mystical mystery that is exciting enough that I nearly missed my subway stop reading it. I can't remember the last time that happened. Doyle becomes the leader of a group of spiritualist crime-fighters including H.P. Lovecraft, Marie Laveau and Harry Houdini when the founder of the Arcanum is killed over a book that may bring about the end of the world. In trying to solve the murder and recover the book, the members of the Arcanum discover more than they (or we) would ever expect. Or that I would want to give away in a review. Mr. Wheeler clearly has a talent for characterization. All the members of the Arcanum are wonderfully drawn. And each of them has moments worthy of their skills. Houdini's rescue of Lovecraft from the insane asylum, Laveau's encounter with Beltran and Lovecraft's conversations with Crowley are all scenes that will stay with me. Granted, this novel is a flight of pure fantasy and it has its weaknesses. I didn't get as much of the sense of old New York in this novel as I had hoped. Also, it reminds me a lot of that X-files episode about the nephalim--Mr. Wheeler's movie & TV pedigree is pretty obvious. Still, I was willing to forgive a lot because this novel is a heck of a fun ride.
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