Book & Audio Review: Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green

Something from the Nightside
Author: Simon R. Green
Narrator: Dan Calley
Series: Nightside (Book 1)
Publication: Ace (May 27, 2003); Tantor Audio (January 18, 2022)
Length: 238 p,; 4 hours and 55 minutes

Description: Taylor is the name, John Taylor. My card says I’m a detective, but what I really am is an expert on finding lost things. It’s part of the gift I was born with as a child of the Nightside.

I left there a long time ago, with my skin and sanity barely intact. Now I make my living in the sunlit streets of London. But business has been slow lately, so when Joanna Barrett showed up at my door, reeking of wealth, asking me to find her runaway teenage daughter, I didn’t say no.

Then I found out exactly where the girl had gone.

The Nightside. That square mile of Hell in the middle of the city, where it’s always three A.M. Where you can walk beside myths and drink with monsters. Where nothing is what it seems and everything is possible.

I swore I’d never return. But there’s a kid in danger and a woman depending on me. So I have no choice—I’m going home.

My Thoughts: This first book in the Nightside series begins like a noir hard-boiled detective story. John Taylor is scraping a living as a private investigator in London. Then a woman walks in with a problem. She's offering big bucks to Taylor to find her runaway daughter. Intrigued by the case and the woman, Taylor agrees. But there is a problem - the case will take him back to the Nightside he left six years earlier.

From that point the book shifts to a dark urban fantasy with more than a touch of horror as Taylor travels the Nightside with his client meeting old friends and old enemies in his quest to find the missing teenager. 

The worldbuilding was intriguing and, frankly, horrifying. A house that eats people and dead zones that transport people to other times were intriguing. The characters and dialog seemed ripped from a 1940s mystery. 

While I enjoyed this story, the horror aspects will keep me from continuing on with the series. Fans of horror and noir mysteries will likely want to continue. 

Favorite Quote:

There's a certain comfort to be had in finding the answers to other people's problems, if you can't solve your own.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.