Something from the Nightside by Simon Green (4/5 stars)

This is the first book of the Nightside novels by Simon Green. I think as of now there are 12 planned books for this series. The most recent book is book 7 "Hell to Pay".

I read somewhere that this is Simon Green's homage to the detective stories of old. I suppose that is a good description of this book but with a lot of twists.

The main character John Taylor is a finder, he can find things, anything. When Joanna Barett shows up requesting that John help find her daughter Catharine, John accepts the job. The only twist is that rumors are Catharine has been seen in the Nightside; the twisted evil center of London. John fled from the Nightside 5 years ago to save his own life. For some reason though the return back there feels like home to John.

This book was a fun and quick read. I liked the character of John Taylor; he has a lot of depth and some interesting abilities. There is a lot of history hinted at in John's past that will make some interesting fodder as the series continues. The descriptions of Nightside are very dark and horror-like. I would classify this book maybe more as a horror novel; although it still is part of the alternate reality fantasy genre. Some parts of this book reminded me of the Sonya Blue series; although this book was quite as vicious as those books were.

There was a ton of well written action, some fun twists and surprises. This book is not for the faint of heart though as all the gore in the action scenes is visited in ...well...gory detail.

My only complaints with this book would be that 1)It was a really short book and 2) sometimes descriptions got a bit wordy and kind of took over the story. Otherwise it was a great book and I look forward to reading the next one in the series.