Review: Perfect penny dreadful
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 23, 2013
Dear reader, let yourself be drawn, almost against your will, into the swirling, misty alleyways of the past to experience the Seance of the Souls. With a growing sense of unease, you'll recognise some of the hideous characters from your previous travails in the Mask of the Macabre and Ballet of the Bones.Beginning with a funeral where Matthew Napier is confronting the loss of his family, you will stumble through the bloodstained gutters of Victorian London to witness a fortune teller giving him and his sister a bleak reading indeed. Once Matthew's sister is ripped from him too, his despair is complete; and he is vulnerable to the advances of pure evil. This is embodied by members of a spiritualist church, and he is confronted by the past in ways even you could not imagine. Is it magic, or murder? Who can Matthew trust? Amid corpses, skulls and ever-shifting masks, you will not know which way to turn. Be sure to keep your own senses sharp as those around you descend into madness!David Haynes's novella carries on from his two short story collections, but also stands alone as a great read. Highly recommended.