“The Somnambulist is a fantasy/horror novel set in Victorian times about a once-famous magician turned detective Edward Moon and his sidekick, The Somnambulist, a silent giant with a default thirst for milk. The police reluctantly turn to the unlikely duo to help solve a series of inexplicable, grisly murders that seem to have ties with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the future of London.
Jonathan Barnes' first novel starts interestingly enough by adequately imposing the strange mood and eccentric environs to give the readers a fuller feel of what’s in store for them. Despite the promising start, it careens out of control at the last quarter. You read on in hopes that it will turn itself around but it does not. Its anti-climactic ending leaves you feeling empty, like you’ve been taken for a ride that you weren’t really into but seemed like a good idea at the time. But it’s odd enough to browse if only to escape reality for a while.”
jemps918 wrote this review Tuesday, January 6 2009.
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