The Entropy Pump

by Cliff Burns (Download)

So Dark the Night has a similar character dynamic as Conan Doyle’s famous duo, only that Sherlock is a woman and Watson hopelessly in love with her. The story is told from the viewpoint of the later one and shows their current case, a former, rather harmless gathering of occultists who have become a shade darker. I’m not sure what I expected a novel by Cliff would look like, since I’ve read only some of his shorter work, but I surely didn’t expected such an accessible and fun read. Furthermore, I’m addicted to books that mix elements of the fantastic with detective fiction, so this was right up my alley.

As I already said, the main character dynamic is drawn from a tried and true schema, but Evgeny Nightstalk (the Watson) and Cassandra Zinnea also have elements of hardboiled/noir. Evgeny is the typical hard shell but emphatic core private dick (who still loves to fight) and Cassandra is the unattainable beauty who loves to play with fire. But there’s more to both of them. While Evgeny is always talking about how smart Cassandra is, for example, the most memorable quality of her that we see is her unwavering moral code, always willing to do what is necessary to protect the weak and helpless. She is the heart and Evgeny the fist.

There’s also a host of other interesting characters that help the two, for example a Sherlock Holmes mini-me version (Burns captures the nature of the original Sherlock perfectly, but has also fun with turning the original upside-down by giving him an unexpected weakness).

Before I close this, I have to mention how much I liked the inclusion of real events, people and stuff in the book’s own secret occult history. More than once I went to wikipedia to look something up, only to find myself traversing wikipedia for hours.

This was all a bit over the map, but it all adds up to one book I can heartily recommend. It’s a great read and I hope I will one day hold a paper edition in my hands, because this one deserves it.

Rating: 5/5