[Review] Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green

Something from the Nightside
Nightside #1
Simon R. Green
May 27th, 2003
Ace
230 pages

Amazon/Book Depository/B&N

John Taylor is not a private detective per se, but he has a knack for finding lost things. That's why he's been hired to descend into the Nightside, an otherworldly realm in the center of London where fantasy and reality share renting space and the sun never shines.

"Taylor is the name. John Taylor...My card says I'm a detective, but what I really am is an expert on finding things. It's part of the Gift I was born with as a child of the Nightside - the hidden heart of London where it's always three a.m., where inhuman creatures and otherworldly gods walk side-by-side in the endless darkness of the soul.

"Assignment: Joanna Barrett hires me to track down her teenage daughter, who decided to forgo the circus and run away to the Nightside. The kid has no idea what she's getting herself into...You can find anything in the Nightside-if it doesn't find you first."

Chris here for a change of pace from my usual hard core sci-fi books, this month I'm going to review some books with a more paranormal twist. Something from the Nightside is the first book in the Nightside series. What is the Nightside, it is the place where monsters, heroes, demons, and gods come to play. Where the supernatural is natural, and every day things are not what they seem.

That goes for the main character too, John Taylor is more than a normal man, and his "gift" lets him find the missing. He is that kind of old fashioned private eye who won't take crap from anyone and is good at improvising in almost any situation. And when he needs that little bit of extra help, he knows people.

I love the mix of myths, legends and an old fashioned private eye novel. The main character John Taylor walks the mean streets of the Nightside in his iconic white trench coat. He is accompanied by such colorful characters as Susie Shooter, also known as "Shotgun Susie", and "oh Christ it's her, run", a female bounty hunter with a double barreled pump shotgun. Then you have Razor Eddy, Punk God of the Straight Razor who looks like a bum and smells like a herd of them.

Simon R. Green kept me reading with whimsical humor and plot twists galore. This book feels like it would make a good BBC series if they wanted to take a shot at it. Now I might be making this book sound too complex to follow, but honestly, it isn't hard to keep track of the secondary characters and follow along as they either help or hinder John Taylor as he searches the wild and weird world of the Nightside for a missing girl.

Now, I don't want to give away and secrets, so I'll leave you with this, I find this book to be "out of this world" and give it a solid 4 out of 5 laser pistols.