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Overview
In the wake of the war that left the Nightside leaderless, Jeremiah Griffin-one of the last of the immortal human families-plans to fill the power vacuum. But his granddaughter has disappeared, and he wants John Taylor to use his special abilities to find her. Except someone-or something-is blocking Taylor's abilities.Synopsis
In the wake of the war that left the Nightside leaderless, Jeremiah Griffin-one of the last of the immortal human families-plans to fill the power vacuum. But his granddaughter has disappeared, and he wants John Taylor to use his special abilities to find her. Except someone-or something-is blocking Taylor's abilities.
Publishers Weekly
Lady Damnation, Old Father Time, a world weary Count Dracula and the hard-drinking storybook character Bruin Bear are only a few of the beings that Green produces for his seventh novel set in the sinister and psychedelic world of Nightside. None, however, are more powerful than "the Griffin," an immortal who built his empire on the carcasses of foes, who has now summoned paranormal PI John Taylor to find his granddaughter. Taylor specializes in locating lost things; his Sight-which allows him to see into other dimensions-should be ideal for the task. But when an entity in the Griffin's mansion blocks his abilities, Taylor must investigate the old-fashioned way: questioning the Griffin's family members one by one. Taylor's q&a sessions are less than thrilling, and the numerous references to the family's fearsome reputation grow tiresome. Fortunately, Green throws in a number of left-field surprises, spicing things up with an attack of fanatical nuns (called the Salvation Army Sisterhood), a bloodthirsty gangster and a DNA-stealing Charnel Chimera. Indeed, the most entertaining aspect lies not in Taylor's investigation but in anticipating what Green's twisted imagination will conjure next. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe illegitimate love child of Raymond Chandler and H. P. Lovecraft...equal parts The Twilight Zone, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Dante's Divine Comedy...H. R. Giger meets Monty Python's Flying Circus. Simon R. Green's Nightside saga -- an audacious amalgam of mystery, fantasy and horror -- may be impossible to accurately describe, but these action-packed, breakneck-paced adventures featuring private investigator John Taylor may quite possibly be the most addictively readable series around.
In Hell to Pay, the seventh in Green's Nightside sequence (Something from the Nightside, Agents of Light and Darkness, et al.), Taylor -- a butt-kicking private eye who specializes in cases of "the weird and uncanny" -- is faced with his most potentially lucrative case yet. One of the Nightside's most wealthy residents, an immortal named Jeremiah Griffin, offers Taylor 10 million pounds to find his granddaughter Melissa, a soon-to-be 18-year-old who simply disappeared from the Griffin mansion. Taylor accepts the case but soon finds himself treading on dangerous ground; in a powerful family with more than their fair share of dirty little secrets, some would do anything to keep those secrets from surfacing…
The reasons behind the wild success of Green's Nightside novels aren't exactly hard to figure out; set in one of the coolest locales ever imagined (the subterranean city-within-a-city underneath London proper) and featuring a never-ending cast of over-the-top characters (Shotgun Suzie, Dead Boy, Razor Eddie, et al.), these novels are as hilarious as they are outrageous: unadulterated literary fun. Paul Goat Allen