The title London Underground and the short description with its historical pointers conjured up Dickens and a sinister Droodian flavor of hidden opium dens, lost people, detritus of society living out their lives underneath London. I was hoping to learn more about the London Underground and it’s denizens from past to present, a fascinating topic all by itself. I was, however, left disappointed. This is first and foremost a horror thriller with a bit of a historical flavor that merely serves to explain the setting of contemporary London. On the positive side, it does so with the benefit of a fast moving plot. It begins in medieval London but it’s main characters, one bunch of them commandos during WW2, another policemen and archaeologists from current times, do their bit independently. There isn’t much historical accuracy to find but names like Churchill, Quisling, etc get to be minor characters which are done quite well by the author.
Altogether an acceptable read. ( )

All major cities know about rats. Most major cities have miles of underground tunnels, many have secrets hidden down below. But a race of intelligent, scientifically mutated rats designed to carry biological weapons are only found under London.

The opening scene starts during the reign of King Henry VIII when London is in a panic over a reappearance of the English Sweat. King Henry brings Anne Boleyn into his confidence about the location of a vast treasure he has hidden to protect England’s finances.

In 1944, Gunnar Hansen is called into the war rooms of Churchill to be given a special assignment. It has been discovered that the Nazi’s have a secret government lab in northern Norway working on a new weapon to help beat the British. Intelligence suggests they are trying to use a biological agent to be delivered by V2 rocket. Gunnar and his team are to infiltrate the lab, destroy what they can and try to gather any information to help London should the Nazi’s be successful.

Inspector Sherwood Peets is called to a crime scene in an unusual place. Bones have been found in an old abandoned tunnel and he starts investigating, what he learns may be a an old crime from the time of WWII.

Carmen Kingsley who works for the British Museum is in charge of a new Roman site found in the middle of London. While unearthing it, a section of lost tunnels was found, including some of the old cistern system possibly from the time of King Henry.

There are many secrets under the streets of London and there are some people who want them to stay there. Unfortunately, some of the secrets are tired of the dark and want to visit the light. This could change the face of London forever.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Peets and Kingsley meet during the course of their investigations and the story of Gunnar and his team on their mission is interspersed through the story. I thought it was an excellent mix. Angus also introduced me to a new freaky ‘monster’ and did a great job of keeping tension and a feeling of unease through the book without it becoming unpleasant.

The author was/is a reporter and you can see that in the book. He’s obviously done some research on both London and it’s rat population. He used many facts about rats that really weren’t necessary for the story but I found to be interesting nonetheless. The book would fit into the realm of James Patterson or Dan Brown as far as the type of story but I feel it was much better written than Brown’s books.

I would say that it could have used one more going over to edit the characters, just a polishing really, they seemed a little stilted, especially in the beginning, but that got better as the book went on. I think part of the problem was adding in exposition for a couple characters, in an attempt to help the reader understand in a ‘telling’ way, not a ‘showing’ one. All in all I wouldn’t discount this book because of it, it was just an area I felt it could have been improved on. ( )