Review: Pulp Noir With A Flourish And A Twist
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 25, 2013
We are firmly in noir territory with this story. We've got a down on her luck private investigator some years after World War One who's just a bit to familiar with the bottle and we've got a dead body.We also have just a touch of magic. Not a lot mind you, until towards the end it's almost a background element though it is key to the character.So technically this is Urban Fantasy. But we're not talking vampires or werewolves or most of the usual elements really. Just magic of relatively undefined but somewhat Germanic origin.It's a short story, but well told and with a surprising amount of word building incorporated. The author Peter A. Smalley says that the historical and geographic details are correct and I have no particular reason to doubt him. While I'm not familiar with the area, they have a feel of authenticity to them.We really only get to explore the one character but she is deftly handled and key information about her is revealed in a natural fashion. The approach to her sexual orientation is particularly subtly done and a pleasant change from the usual sledgehammer approach.If you put your mind to it you will be able to figure out a large chunk of the mystery here, but I don't think that's really the point of this story. It's really about character and setting more than anything else.The ending leaves further stories at least theoretically possible and I could definitely see this turning into a series of stories where we get to explore other parts of the world and it's ever so slightly altered history.If the scoring system allowed I would almost certainly have gone with 4 1/2 stars and the lost half star is mainly down to something slightly off or out of character (from my perception) with the ending. It's not major, but it just niggled at me that our protagonist was able to let certain issues go quite so easily.