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Chargement... The Midnight Eye Filespar William Meikle
Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.  RandyStafford | May 6, 2017 |  aucune critique | ajouter une critique
The exploits of Glasgow private investigator Derek Adams collected in a three-volume set of Lovecraftian noir. This collection includes: The Amulet It was supposed to be an easy case. Fast money, and a way to kill some time-something Derek Adams, a down-on-his-luck Glasgow private investigator, has way too much of. Recover a stolen family heirloom, and try to keep the relationship with his very beautiful-and very married-client, strictly professional. Easy. But the Johnson Amulet is no mere trinket...and Derek isn't the only person trying to find the priceless relic. Before long he's up to his armpits in bodies, femme fatales... and tentacles. The stars have aligned... An ancient evil has awakened. To save the day, Derek must take some dark pathways, and not everyone is going to make it back out into the light. The Sirens Glasgow private investigator Derek Adams can't seem to get away from the otherworldly, especially not when it seems to be the only paying gig in town. So when an old widow offers him two grand to find her son-who isn't exactly missing...just not himself-it's not long before things start to get weird, and a road trip to the rural village of Skye turns into a detour to the twilight. Before long, Derek is on a remote island, hip-deep in mermaids, stalked by shape-shifters, and tangled in the nets of a diabolical fisher cult intent on waking an ancient god and unleashing the apocalypse. In other words, it's business as usual. The Skin Game Things are finally looking up for Glasgow private investigator Derek Adams. The agency is flush with cash and finally getting some respect, and the nightmares? Well, there's booze for that. But the dark side isn't finished with Derek. What starts off as a simple inquiry into the dealings of a shady bookie quickly descends into a battle with the shadowy unknown. Before he knows it, Derek is on the run, framed for an impossible murder. His only leverage is a strange skin belt that seems to have a life of its own, but hanging onto it might cost Derek more than just his life. This collection also includes two bonus Midnight Eye stories: The Forth Protocol and One, Two Go! Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Auteur LibraryThingWilliam Meikle est un auteur LibraryThing, c'est-à-dire un auteur qui catalogue sa bibliothèque personnelle sur LibraryThing. Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires 
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Adams is a one-time microbiology student turned wise-cracking reporter turned wise-cracking private eye. He smokes too much, drinks too much, earns too little, and can’t get over the guilt from the suicide of his girlfriend 20 years ago. He’s a self-consciously Philip Marlowe type.
Meikle, a Scot transplanted to Newfoundland, lived and worked a number of years in Glasgow, so depicts the town he knew then though the setting is now an "idealised one". We see the highs and lows of Glasgow, the pubs and thrift shops, and slums as well as the country and towns nearby
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The usual private eye plots are in place. Meandering questioning of people, some who won’t survive the story, gradual revelations here that involving the occult. Meikle has some continuity in character relationships from novel to novel which is welcome instead of hitting the reset button after each story.
Adams has a friend, traumatized in the first adventure, who does the internet research
The Amulet is the best story, Adam’s first exposure to real magic. It’s Chandler meets a Hammer Film in a story of an archaeological expedition to Ur decades in the past, a theft of one of its relics, a mysterious Arab, a lot of dead bodies, and a climax in a castle. And Adams has a sexy woman for a client though he’s not too sure about the unsavory reputation around her husband. There’s enough references to the Cthulhu Mythos to consider it a Lovecraftian story in theme if not style or plot. There’s even excerpts from the journal of that archaeological expedition.
Adams is hired to bring a son back to the funeral of his father in Govan, a village of strange going ons in The Sirens. There is a bit of a feel of Lovecraft’s Innsmouth and a whole lot more from Norse myth.
The Skin Game involves werewolves, World War II, the French and Indian War, and some Glaswegian thugs.
I didn’t like the short stories as much probably because they didn’t get as much room to show Adams’ character and the Scottish settings.
“The Fourth Protocol” involves a hunt for sunken treasure. “A Slim Chance”, however, was an entertaining mixture of magic and fatal weight loss.
I’m sure Meikle’s plotting was up to the aesthetics of paradox and casualties inherent in the time travel story which is what "One, Two, Go!", but I was tired and eager to finish the book, so my attention flagged a bit on that one.
Meikle has written other Derek Adams short works which I am going to look up, and he’s announced his intention to return to this, his favorite character. (