The Bride Wore Black Leather

December 12, 2011
Green’s superlative 12th Nightside novel (after 2011’s A Hard Day’s Knight), set in a world “hidden deep in the dark and dangerous heart of London,” ratchets up the stakes for series protagonist John Taylor in an intricate and action-filled plot that seamlessly blends crime and the supernatural. Taylor has been designated the new “Walker,” the public face of the rulers of the Nightside, so he begins wrapping up his personal investigation business. Then an anonymous e-mail sends Taylor to the Ball of Forever; the guest list is limited to immortals, but a killer manages to strike one down. As Taylor hunts the culprit, he learns that a powerful entity seeks to destroy the entire Nightside. The pace never flags and the sardonic Chandleresque narration (”She didn’t lose her innocence; she threw it away with both hands, first chance she got”) is perfectly suited to the Nightside’s fantastical mean streets. Agent: JABberwocky Literary Agency.

January 1, 2012
Another in Green's urban-fantasy noir Nightside series (A Hard Day's Knight, 2011, etc.)—purportedly the last. Nightside is the uncanny underside of London, inhabited by a bewildering variety of supernatural beings, where it's perpetually 3 AM and you can get anything you want, and also things you decidedly don't want. Our narrator, multitalented PI John Taylor, now appointed Walker (think marshal of Dodge City) by the Authorities, decides to take one last case before marrying his sweetheart, bounty hunter Suzie Shooter. He receives a supernatural warning of shenanigans to come at the Ball of Forever, where Nightside's immortals gather to sneer and preen at one another. Green introduces us to the attendees in what isn't too much more than an admittedly inventive parade of otherworldly weirdos. Eventually, somebody murders the widely despised King of Skin ("You're Only Immortal As Long As You Don't Die") and also Frankenstein's Bride. The Bride is soon back on her feet after a jolt of electricity, but King of Skin is indeed permanently dead. The new Walker soon wraps up the mystery, but then a godlike entity called the Sun King, a charismatic hippie who disappeared back in the 1960s, shows up to declare that he'll bring devastating, cleansing sunlight to the Nightside, whose denizens are aghast. Worse, the Sun King appears to have been amplified by superpowered entities from another dimension. What follows is another dramatic, inventive and highly selective orgy of murder and mayhem. Can Walker prevail against odds when almost everybody wants him dead? And will he get to the church on time? Despite a few blips, a hugely satisfying windup for one of fantasy's most memorable constructs.

(COPYRIGHT (2012) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)