Catacombs of Terror!

Starred review from July 25, 2016
Back in print after more than a decade, this irresistible mash-up of noir and gothic horror from Donwood (Household Worms) defines the term “cult classic.” Bath, England, is no criminal hotbed, and the genteel tourist town offers few paying gigs for dissolute PI Martin Valpolicella. Then the detective receives a message warning him that he will be framed for murder. His informant gives him a cryptic tip: he should investigate the archeological dig in the center of town. Valpolicella sneaks into the site and discovers a deep hole leading into a complex maze of tunnels. Later in a pub, a man named Stonehenge tells the detective about the dark secret beneath the town, where the “folks who really run things,” a group known as AFFA, have occupied the ruins of an earlier pre-Roman city. The only way for Valpolicella to clear his name and save an innocent victim’s life is to take a primal, hallucinatory journey down into the underworld. Oh, and the catacombs are guarded by flesh-eating pigs, of course. This is a wild, shambolic ride, but its central idea—of a dark world just underneath our own—is as noir as it gets.

September 1, 2016
Rock-music fans might know the author as the guy who creates those awesome album covers for Radiohead. Readers might know him as the author of some wonderfully wacky fiction, including this novel, which was originally published in a limited edition more than 10 years ago (it was written to win a betthat Donwood couldn't write a 50,000-word pulp novel in 30 days). It tells the story of a private eye, Martin Valpolicella, who finds out that he's about to be framed for murdering his lover, a married woman with a powerful husband. In the course of attempting to clear himself, he uncovers a secret network of tunnels underneath the city (Bath, England) and a vast conspiracy that threatens to change the course of human historyoh, and some murderous pigs. Donwood is a nimble and impish writer, taking his story to the edge of absurdity (murderous pigs?) but never letting it slip away completely. There's an element of real danger here, lurking beneath the wordplay and quirky dialogue, and there's also a rather touchingif wickedly convolutedlove story. Just a whole lot of fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)