John Taylor is our narrator, a private investigator complete with the expected trench coat. John isn't just a "private eye" he has a mystical third "private eye" through which he can find things--at least in London's Nightside. The Nightside "is a square mile of narrow streets and back alley in the centre of city linking slums and tenement that were old when the last century was new.... It's always three o' clock in the morning, and the dawn never comes." It's filled with demons, trolls, ghosts, giants, fairies, poltergeists, zombies, and talking horses. That's the strength of the book--the Dali-esque phantasmagorical setting.

Something from the Nightside The very first sentence lets us know we're in the land of noir. Then a beautiful wealthy client, Joanna Barrett, walks in (from the rain of course) asking Taylor to find her missing teenage daughter. I have to tell you, just knowing the hard-boiled detective genre as I do, I was pretty sure right there what role Joanna would play. The major weakness for me in this first book is the character of Joanna and John's relationship with her. She's supposed to be part of the normal world, and yet she doesn't need any convincing that her daughter is lost in this magical world part Harry Potter's Diagon Alley and part Neverworld's "London Below." The dialogue that comes out of her mouth is often eye-rolling, her character inconsistent and the way John fell for her unbelievable. Three Stars

Agents of Light and Darkness I liked this second in the series quite a bit more than the first. In this one Taylor, with "Shotgun Suzy" at his side, has been hired to find "the Unholy Grail." The object, once drunk from by Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper, "magnifies all evil by its presence, encourages and accelerates evil trends and events, and utterly corrupts all who come in contact with it." Vying for ownership are those "agents of Light and Darkness." Angels from "above and below" who are fallen and unfallen. And even those angels from Heaven are not nice. They threaten to tear apart the Nightside to find the dark object. It makes for an intriguing MacGuffin. And as with the first book the fun in this is Green's wild imagination loose in his depiction of his setting and characters, only here sharper, more immersive and less predictable than in the first book. It's also if anything more gross, gory and grisly in a very pulp fiction way. Fast-paced, enjoyable read. Three and a Half Stars

Nightingale's Lament With this series, it was the third novel that's the charm. Maybe it's just that Taylor and the Nightside has grown on me, but I don't think so. This one just had so many memorable scenes. One in particular was a fun romp--a visit to the Night Times, the local newspaper. It sported a poltergeist copyboy, two ravens for fact-checkers, a typewriter haunted by their ghostwriter, a goblin drag queen doing the horoscope and Argus, a shifter, as their gossip columnist. The publisher and editor, Julien Advent, is worthy of a book of his own. Add characters such as Dead Boy and Rossignol, a nightclub singer with a voice to die for. What's not to love? Four Stars

So, given Nightingale's Lament was quite good, I may take other walks on the Nightside someday and keep the omnibus volume on my shelf. ( )

Something From the Nightside (Book 1)
This book was just ok. The storyline wasn't bad, the pacing could be slow and rambling, and the characters weren't completely one dimensional. Green developed some interesting relationships and settings. I'm glad I satisfied my curiosity by reading it, but if I ever continue the series it will be a long time from now. I have too many other things to read.
3 stars ( )

Good book(s - first three novels of the series). Not as good as Deathstalker series by Simon Green, but it could be because of the big difference in the books' settings. It took a while to get into it but once in, I enjoyed it. This is much darker in tone than his other books, which, although the protagonists also dealt with the seamier side of their worlds, maintained a more light hearted atmosphere. But it does have the Simon Green trademark of what was know a long time ago as witty repartee. Definitely will search out the other books in the series. ( )