It’s not often I’ll write a review of a book, but it’s not often I get to read something so very, very different.

This is not a normal book, IT’S GREAT!

Right, that’s got the pull quote out of the way… which should make someone happy.

Now, what to say about the book per se… well… now comes the trickier part, because at least 90% of the joy of reading this is the constantly nagging question in the mind of _what the hell is going on here?_ It’s not often that one can really have the feeling of discovering things along with the characters; typically one has a rough notion of where things are going ahead of time.

Not with this. No no.

Initially it seems like a fresh take on the set-​up presented in *Arthur Machen*’s 1917 novella _The Terror_, which also provided the starting structure of the Benji Spriteman Mysteries _The Terror and the Tortoiseshell_ and _The Designated Coconut_. That’s just the starting point, however.

Once we’re past that… Lordy does the thing get up to cruising altitude quickly, and it stays there right until the end. Imagine trying to explain _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ to someone who’s never even heard of it. How does one go from _there’s a guy who’s going to get his house knocked over for a road…_ all the way to _meeting a man who has two heads and three arms and who happens to be the Galactic President…_ without losing all credibility? You’ve barely got into the story at that point, as well.

Were any of the plot provided, too much would be given away. No, really: anything more than what you already have would ruin the surprise. There’s much in here to exclaim loudly at the page _*what?* Are you insane?_ In a good way, obviously.

The characters are wonderfully developed over the length of the tale, the settings are excellently detailed, and the dialogue is grand stuff with all sorts of witty back-​and-​forth.

If there is any shortcoming to the book, it’s that it might benefit from a tiny bit of careful, very precise, surgical-​style editing. Hastening to emphasis the ‘tiny’ aspect of the criticism, as there’s so much to enjoy that someone simply looking for _a dashed good read_ wouldn’t see a single thing wrong it. I just happen to be a bit more picky, which doesn’t make me any better, it merely makes me “different.”

The first chapter is considerably longer than the rest of them, but does have the herculean task of providing the entire back story of the protagonist and his relatives. While there might be some way to break-​up this block of material some way — possibly through the sort involving an initial arrival in Royal Street Station with a large tiger leaping at our hero, followed by a statement of the _…but let me back up and tell you how I got here…_ variety — but I’m at a loss to suggest anything precise.

There are other points through the book that the Editor in me had thoughts of _that last last exchange of dialogue ought to be trimmed back…_ as well as an occasional _might be better to shift that ahead of the action it follows right now…_ but those both were few enough in instance to collectively count on one hand, and they’re only mentioned in order for this to not be seen as an altogether glowing and celebratory review. Praise the good, indicate the bits to work harder on next time; that’s my approach.

Honestly, the best suggestion I can make here is the following:

_It’s great, it’s not like anything you’ve encountered before. It’s tough to really say much more, so just *read* it, okay?_ ( )