Penny Dreadful

Rating:
Summary: dark, mesmerizing, genuinely creepy
Review: Amid the slick writing, the grimly fascinating characters, plots, and setpieces, it's easy to miss the literary intelligence that's at work here. Baer gives us not only an addictive mystery-thriller, which is genuinely creepy and disturbing, but also a submerged meditation on the slipperiness of identity. There's even some well-placed commentary on _Ulysses_ here. Baer's vision ain't pretty, but it's compelling, and I think he's one to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric Amazing
Review: Enigmatic and sublime. This stark noirish nightmare is as good as they get. Baer makes what almost could be called a surrealist hardboiled novel. Without lossing control of the narrative, Baer does a superb job crossing the border between naturalist crime writing and heady phantasmagoria. Phineas Poe is one of the most interesting, beguiling anti-heros within the noir genre, a tight lipped drugged out sam spade caught up in a underground world of would be vampires.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Side of the Looking Glass
Review: To read Penny Dreadful is to experience a surreal nightmare while awake. Seedy neighborhoods inhabited by ghoulish freaks and society misfits - lost souls without hope of redemption. If you are looking for a feel good moment, this is the wrong book. Nothing uplifting here. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has read Will Christopher Baer's first novel Kiss Me, Judas.

This time Phineas Poe starts in search of a missing detective Jimmy Sky. Through this endeavor Poe unwittingly becomes a participant in a bizarre game in which in the players possess dual personalities - one real, one fantasy. But in this game fantasy soon takes over reality as people become absorbed into their alter egos. Baer spares nothing as he graphically describes their descent into this slimy underworld. Creepy stuff here but, if you can handle it, Penny Dreadful will provide a mesmerizing read.