Hammers on Bone

Persons Non Grata #1

by Cassandra Khaw

Cassandra Khaw bursts onto the scene with Hammers on Bone, a hard-boiled horror show that Charles Stross calls "possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016." A finalist for the British Fantasy award and the Locus Award for Best Novella!

John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.

He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.

As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.

 

Finalist für den British Fantasy Award und den Locus Award

Charles  
»Das möglicherweise vielversprechendste Horrordebüt des Jahres.«

Alle fünf Bände der 24er-Ausgabe von Cemetery Dance Germany SELECT sind von Vincent Chong illustriert, haben illustrierte Vor- und Nachsatzpapiere sowie 3 Innenillustrationen.

HINWEIS Gesamtausgabe &
Die fünf Bände von Cemetery Dance Germany SELECT '24 - LOVECRAFTIAN VIBES sind ebenfalls als Gesamtausgabe im Sammlerschuber erhältlich. Die Hardcover der ersten Auflage der Gesamtausgabe werden einen digitalen Farbschnitt erhalten. Ein bestehendes CDG-SELECT-Abo (direkt beim Verlag) zählt ebenfalls in Bezug auf die erste Auflage der Gesamtausgabe mit Farbschnitt.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Novella, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Lovecraftian

72 pages, ebook

First published October 11, 2016

About the author

Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer.
Their recent novella Nothing but Blackened Teeth was a British
Fantasy, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Bram Stoker
Award finalist. Their debut collection Breakable Things is now
out.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I’d gotten into the detective business to escape the deepwater blues, from the songs that squirm in your veins like worms.”

I’m not a big fan of describing things as Lovecraftian - I don’t care for the guy himself, I prefer tentacles in the form of calamari, and I can live without the overwritten language just fine. But like it or not, this story is very much Lovecraftian in tone and feeling — combined with the tobacco smoke-filled atmosphere of Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled noir detective stories.

Just read the passage below and tell me you’re not hearing it in the macho raspy-voice gruff narration out of a cloud of cigar smoke:

“Croydon’s a funny place these days. I remember when it was harder, when it was chiselers and punks, knife-toting teenagers and families too poor to make it anywhere else in grand old London, when this body was just acres of hurt and heroin, waiting to stop breathing. Now Croydon’s split down the middle, middle-class living digging its tentacles into the veins of the borough, spawning suits and skyscrapers and fast food joints every which way. In a few years, it’ll just be another haunt for the butter-and-egg men. No room for the damned.”

I came into this book completely cold - Carol suggested reading it, and that was enough of a recommendation for me - and it took a couple of pages to figure out what’s and how’s of this short piece. Yes, there’s an investigation. Yes, there will be tentacles. Yes, there’s cigarette smoke and moodiness and violence and quite a bit of body horror, some of it better avoided on a full stomach.

“The cold feels good, real good, a switchblade chill cutting deep into the cancer of a thousand years’ nap.”

Khaw mostly pulls off the combination of hard-boiled noir and Lovecraftian horror. She seamlessly achieves that cacophonically vivid viscerality of smells and colors, the disturbing imagery, the oppressively bleak of atmosphere. And speaking of visceral — yes, there will be a fair bit of actual viscera on page. But yes, you should be somewhat familiar with the tradition of Lovecraftian horror and mythos to get the most out of it.

“The house becomes indistinguishable from an intestinal tract, throbbing with polyps and wet tissue, with tendrils.”

“The street is getting dark, the pavement tiger-striped by halogen. It wears the fog like a dame’s best scarf, slightly jaunty, with an edge of challenge.”

So all that was the good. Now time for the bad and the ugly. For me it was the odd language choice, especially in the colloquialisms, often feeling anachronistic and firmly stuck somewhere in the 1940s-1950s with unexpected intrusions and details pointing out that the events are actually taking place in the 2010s. The choice of sexist language was especially jarring, with all the “skirts” and “broads” and “dames” everywhere. Was it an easy way to give our (anti)hero sone serious moral ambiguity? Was it to underscore his cynicism and rough demeanor? Was it for the infusion of gritty realism into a phantasmagorical setting? Damned if I know, but it grated on me every time, with every endless repetition. Stereotypical sexism is often a shortcut to show less savory sides of humanity, just like rape and not dysentery is used to show the awfulness of war — because it does cause quite visceral reactions, but it feels overdone and often incongruous with the time period on page. And yes, our narrator has a decent case of misanthropy overall, but it is still grating and quite a bit of it could have been omitted without detriment to the story.

That said, overall it was a pretty good story of that Lovecraftian type that (luckily, only metaphorically) makes your skin crawl a bit. And there’s a lot simmering just under the surface - hopefully, just metaphorically so - to suggest just enough to want to learn more, but without feeling like the story or the world are incomplete, and with enough breadcrumbs left to suggest a deeper story that hopefully will be touched on more later.

3.5 stars. I’ll give the next story in this world a try despite my reservations.

“The world’s too full of trouble to adopt those that don’t belong to you.”

————
Buddy read with Carol and David.

[carol. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Khaw's name pops up every now and then, and I've generally avoided her books as they seem to be firmly in the young/new adult genre. However, when Tor offered Khaw's Lovecraftian detective novella as a freebie, I was intrigued. Luckily Nataliya and David helped me capitalize on the momentum with a buddy read.

Some authors can do short stories and novellas. They know how to make a tight little plot arc while fleshing out the detail just enough to make us feel full while hinting at lands beyond the borders of the story. Zelazny is clearly a master, as is Peter Beagle and Naomi Kritzer. Khaw has a bit to go before she can fully manage such brevity. She spends a lot of word power on adjectives, and frankly, unnecessary descriptions that add to the rhythm of the narrative without contributing much else. It's billed by the publisher as a Lovecraftian detective story, but it feels like Khaw mostly wants to just play in her world, as well as offer some commentary on our own.

"I stroll into the factory with the post-lunch crowd. The boys, plump on bad lager and cheap Indian takeout, don't give me a second look. Not when I peacock through the front gate, brash as new brass, and certainly not when I trespass into employees-only territory. Good. I'd have felt bad for their molls if we busted the furniture together. This might be the twenty-first century, a time when dames can hustle as well as any testicle-swinging Joe, but London's no place for a one-income family."

When the story opens on a stereotypical Raymond Chandler (I assume; it's been awhile) detective in his shabby office, there's ambiguity with the narrator's time period owing to the language:

"Usually, it's dames trussed up in whalebone and lace that come slinking through my door. Or, as is more often the case these days, femmes fatales in Jimmy Choos and Armani knockoffs. The pipsqueak in my office is new, and I'm not sure I like his brand of new."

Intriguing, though jumbled. Even more interestingly is that it seems to be deliberate, since the lead, Mr. Persons, has an awareness of his language oddity: "These days, it's all bae and fleek, bootylicious selfies and cultural appropriation done on brand. That puts me in a weird linguistic space..." I'm not saying I hated it, because after a while, it felt a little like language jazz to me. But that ambiguity definitely resulted in me giving as much attention to trying to decipher the narration as the plot. I'll note this persisted on reflection and review-writing: early on, Mr. Persons mentions the female clients as wearing whalebone corsets. Through google-fu, it appears these were pretty unusual by 1910, which was arguably when the first detective fiction appeared. So then I was distracted wondering if Mr. Persons had numerous incarnations... see what I mean?

Speaking of plot, it has odd little spurts and stalls to it that left me wondering if Mr. Persons was indeed going to take the job, and how much damage there might be in his doing so. In retrospect, I rather feel like Khaw was using him to take a tour of her setting. But it is a quick read that my kindle put at about an hour, so storytelling issues that may have become more off-putting in a longer story were easily glossed by.

I honestly can't tell if the language was purple, or just descriptive. I often liked it, and I suspect it achieves it's Lovecraftian vibe. I definitely felt like this story had a miasma, right down to the green decomposing smell. It's just when taken in cumulative that it started raising questions. Still, you can't deny the imagery: "The building in the distance, with its boneyard of chimneys, its cellblock windows, is like the corpse of a god that's been left to rot, picked-over ribs swarming with overall-wearing insects." 

In the afterword, Khaw shares some of her thinking on story origins and dedication. I appreciated that; while I don't think she quite achieved her goal, I do admire what she was attempting.

Apparently, there's a follow-up in the world, and I'm definitely looking forward to taking it on with my buddy readers.

[Peter Topside · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really intrigued by the premise of this story. It started out fairly well and even maintained a good pace, but I just didn't enjoy it much. I felt that important details of the makeup of these creatures and the environment weren't fully explained, and I often found myself not following what was going on. This is a very short story, and went back several times to reread certain sections, assuming I overlooked certain things, but to no avail. The characters were interesting, most notably John Persons, but again, I just didn't feel they were given enough time to 'simmer,' and he wasn't written strong enough to make up for the lack of depth to everything else. I feel like if this was a much longer story, I would feel completely different. The writing style wasn't bad, and again, I did enjoy the basic premise, but just wasn't thrilled by the overall execution of it.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Not all of us wear our demons on our sleeves.’

Noir aesthetics collide with cosmic horror like a stiff drink and smoke amidst the fog of a cloud nebula in Cassandra Khaw’s gritty Hammers on Bone. Here our fearless PI, John Persons, is hired by a young kid with ‘the stare of someone three times his age and something twice as dangerous’ to kill his stepfather. All for the payment of whatever is in the boy’s piggybank, though what lurks inside the stepfather is far more sinister, far less human, and liable to devour all of London. Khaw writes with such confidence and cool, bringing a visceral tale of tentacles and sci fi body horror to life in the tough guy tones of classic noir speech and swagger. A short novella that teases a far larger context where the reader is mostly lost in the fog but can piece together enough from the snippets we pick up, Hammers on Bone is hardboiled, hard hitting and a hell of a lot of fun.

‘You don’t stop where the money ends. You find out where they’re all coming from and you take them out. You hear?’

I wish there was better term than Lovecraftian because it dredges up feelings about his thematic xenophobia (I wrote about that a bit here), but he did inspire a lot of writers and Hammers on Bone does fit the category. I do enjoy seeing authors making good use of his vibes of lurking menace and eerie cult-like communities without making the whole quiet alien invasion a metaphor of replacement theory while still making it feel like humanity is teetering on the edge of a precipice we aren’t even yet aware exists. As a sucker for anything noir, I really enjoyed the way Khaw infuses the cosmic horror with the gritty noir narration and general shadowy aesthetics. It’s like X-Files meets Chinatown and while you should be aware it does retain a lot of the misogynistic terminology of old noir films, the aspects of antiquated speech full of snarky comebacks, stakeouts, gun-totting standoffs ‘or any of the other metaphors familiar to noir’ are quite a fun time. It may be a bit jarring as the story is set more of less present day London (a Tesla factory was my first tip-off to anchor the timeline), though it does seem that the noir speech is sort of an act the being inside Persons is playing for effect. For the reader or for some other reason is unclear, but it does seem self aware it doesn’t necessarily fit and I think its kind of awesome Khaw did it anyways.

Honestly, I just think Khaw is super cool and while I understand complaints of “overwriting,” I just eat it up. It’s wonderfully executed and its sci-fi noir so why not? I’m on board and I plan on reading more. And you can’t stop me bwahahaha (please read this in noir villain voice. I’d like a cool mustache for this role too). But she does pick themes and mine the lexicon to full effect. For noir aspects we get some great lines line ‘a switchblade chill,’ or a street ‘ wears the fog like a dame’s best scarf, slightly jaunty, with an edge of challenge,’ and of course there has to be some punchy line about being a tough guy with a heart of gold, especially around the ladies:

‘I’m not one for a fine touch. I’m a man. I barrel through life, guns blazing, asking questions rarely. For her, though, I’ll dig through my guts for the right approach.’

And the femme fatale here is introduced reading a copy of Dune so extra cool points to her. I do love the line ‘The cry of the gun is loud as the death of stars,’ as it perfectly blends both the noir and the sci-fi elements in one, snappy line. Then we have the horror aspects. The language is visceral and ‘throbbing with polyps and wet tissue, with tendrils,’ it’s all blood and bones and sinew and its delightfully gross as fuck. Khaw does gross violence very well in a way that is unsettling but never feels immoderate or upsetting and--wait, can I say that? If gross violence can be tasteful and pleasant, Khaw nails it. I think it’s just that her writing is so poetic and if its gross it is gorgeously so.

‘No room for the damned’

There is certainly a larger context than the book gives you explanation for, and the epilogue gives you clues but much of it is half-answers where you aren’t even sure of the question. Personally I kind of loved that, like, yea there's a larger thing going on that is beyond my comprehension and no I’m not getting to find out what it is (it’s a mystery book at heart) the way you feel mid-mystery mini-series. I’m not sure if Khaw intends to write more to provide a larger explanation (there is a second book, A Song for Quiet, which is a prequel and I don’t know how much it provides on that front) but I think it’s just fine as is. I do see how that might bother some readers, but I think the reaching towards something you can’t understand fits the cosmic horror mystery vibe and as a kid catching tv shows only in nonsequential reruns I guess I just got used to having to piece together or assume context.

This is a quick little read full of a lot of impact and entertainment. The blending of all the elements might not always flow seamlessly, but I kind of appreciate it for what it is and it’s a nice, gross, and horrific little ride. Khaw rules and Hammers on Bones is an eerie little menacing book.

4/5

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a kid tries to hire John Persons to kill his stepfather, the private investigator is intrigued. Persons quickly determines the stepfather isn't of this earth. Sometimes, it takes a monster to kill a monster...

This was a Netgalley find.

The combination of noir and Lovecraftian horror is a hard one for me to pass up so I jumped on this one straight away.

John Persons is a private investigator in London and not entirely as he seems to be. When young Abel shows up, Persons is intrigued and quickly finds himself in over his head. As with most noir, every damn body is lying about something and Persons means to figure out what's going on, safety be damned!

Cassandra Khaw does a good job weaving the noir and Lovecraftian stuff together nicely. Her London is not pretty or safe. When John Persons is your best hope, you might as well give up...

This book was far from cyclopean in size but packed a lot into it's 100-ish pages. Those guys and gals at Tor.com sure know how to put out a novella. The ending was satisfying and left things open for more John Persons adventures. I was quite pleased with both John's true nature and that of the rest of the characters.

Hammers on Bone wasn't my favorite Lovecraftian detective tale but it was still damn good. I'll be thinking about it for nights to come. 3.5 out of 5 squamous stars.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine if you will that this:



meets this:



And yes, Elder Gods damn it, that is as amazing as it sounds. Lovecraftian Horror meets noir. There endeth the review.

...

Okay, okay, so I will say a little more. This is a beautifully written book. Now, when I say beautiful, I don't mean the finest prose of all time, I mean that Khaw captures the dialogue of classic noir better than any author I've seen writing past the 1930s. Take for example when our narrator meets his client (a young boy):

"Usually, it's dames trussed up in whalebone and lace that come slinking through my door. Or, ai is more often the case these days, femme fatals in Jimmy Choos and Armani knockoffs. The pipsqueak in my office is new, and I'm not sure I like his brand of new. He's young, maybe a rawboned eleven, but he has the stare of someone three times his age and something twice as dangerous."

Oh, yeah. Take in that dialogue. That should tell you straight up if you're going to love or hate this book. Me? I could drown in this language... in a good way. If like me your reaction was to down a shot of whiskey, with a nihilistic chaser, then you have come to the right place.

The plot: dig this hepcats, John Persons is a private investigator, who is hired by a young boy. The job? Kill the boy's stepfather. Now Persons is no assassin, but he'll bop a palooka if necessary... and this time it's necessary. You see this is no normal domestic abuse situation, the stepfather is a genuine monster of the eldritch abomination variety that man was not meant to know, let alone try to comprehend. Lucky for the kid, Persons is the right man for the job. After all, he's a monster too.

All around, this one is a blast to read for all fans of Lovecraftian horror and those who like a good noir. My only complaints are that I wish it would have been longer and despite the bitter sweet nature of the ending, it is far more optimistic than I expected given that neither noir nor cosmic horror or known for ending on a positive note.

A quick read, and one that is well worth the time. 4/5 stars (aligning to signal what man was not meant to know).

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I can read this kind of fiction forever. Like, literally 78 million years in the future, as an immortal intellectual bug, I will be reading this fiction.

To me, Lovecraftian horror is tops. Add a very solid Noir to it, a big of crunching bone and eyes everywhere, a case to solve, and I'm in heaven. Or some outer dimensional equivalent made of ice and regret and nostalgia.

Hardbitten PI meets tentacled horrors. Of course, he is one, too. :)

Highly recommended.

[Zain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraftian!

This book feels like Lovecraft pastiche. It seems like it is a book from Lovecraft.

The author has written a book about a man who has determined that he would save a boy from his stepfather.

The stepfather is a man who has been living with the boy’s mother and little brother and he’s been abusing the child’s mother.

This book has the same premise as the books that are written with the Lovecraftian theme, style, philosophy.

Hammers on Bone is waiting for you to read this book and realize that it is pastiche. The author, Cassandra Khaw, is a great writer and knows what it takes for the reader to be frightened by the horror of the story.

She knows when the story is going to end and get four stars. Here it comes!

Four stars! ✨✨✨✨

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraftian detective noir is such a cool idea.

PI John Persons has a new client, an 11-year old boy with the stink of eldritch horror on him. Persons can tell, he's very familiar with eldritch horrors, being one himself. The boy wants him to kill his step-father who is the monster in question; abusive physically, mentally and ultimately, supernaturally.

There's all the usual tropes of detective noir, particularly including the apparently innocent who are more than they appear. And of course all the tropes of Lovecraftian fiction, including creatures from beyond, far too many eyes, tongues and tentacles and all sorts of gibbering and writhing.

[destiny ♡ howling libraries · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Cassandra Khaw's writing, so I was excited to finally read this little novella after buying it ages ago and keep forgetting to read it! I wasn't sure quite what to expect from it, but I had so much fun. While it follows a cosmic horror storyline, the narrator's mannerisms give it a very different vibe at times as the narrator uses a lot of old slang and often comes off similar to a (sometimes corny) detective from a 40s/50s noir film. I can see how that might not work for everyone, but I found it amusing and a bit charming, so it endeared me to John right away.

This is such a short and odd little novella that it's difficult to describe without spoiling, and I certainly don't want to do that. What I'll say is that it's incredibly unique from other cosmic horror stories I've read and I really loved the fleshing-out of John's character, though I'm still not completely certain I understood the backstory (I'm assuming we'll get more of that in the next novella). I'm excited to continue/finish the series and happy to see that I can enjoy Cass's writing so much even when they're writing something entirely different than what I'm used to from them.

✨ Representation: John is Black, multiple BIPOC side characters

✨ Content warnings for: pedophilia, self-harm for magical purposes, brief body-shaming, racism and racist slur usage (challenged)

———
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[Emma☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars
I like purple prose as much as the next person but this was too much for me to handle. The writing and I did not gel, which was unfortunate because the premise is so darn compelling.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun modern Lovecraftian horror story, inconsistently infused with noir style - Khaw seemed to regularly drop/forget it.

Not a huge pageturner, but entertaining enough.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Revered Old One has taken over my review. Abandon all hope…Tekeli-li!
An exhilarating, Lovecraftian pole-vault, rising and crashing down amidst squidgy, terraformed tissue. A caustic tale of dread, dark as a fresh off the press Hammer diatribe. A noir, tough dissertation, hard boiled as a thirty-minute egg. Tough as gristle. Temperate as a class ‘A’ diamond shoulder. A single, hopelessly detatched walk into a palace of grave dirt. A flotilla of dreams on an uneasy ocean of pustulating emotions. Descriptive passages excised from a great book of promise. Of literary learnings. Of a screech of unholy orders. Words are daggers, driving their point across with blood. Splattering synonyms and syllables. A hostile takeover of carbon flesh and calcium matrices, vitreous humour jelly and sucking mouths. A wet and sloppy ending wrapped by tentacles bleeding ochre on a hastily cribbed bone box.
I’m back, a little worse for wear (and tear). One of Khaw’s earliest publications, this novella rules with its ancient, well-worn characters and brilliant writing.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Please. You’re the only one who can help.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you’re a monster too.”

This novella was a lovely surprise, although the word ‘lovely’ does in no way describe this dark tale. No, this is a horror story that takes the shape of detective fiction, and in particular that of a film noir. We have a private investigator, lone figure with hidden depths, who takes on a desperate job, that turns to be a lot more than he expected. Add to this that the horror aspect is Lovecraftian and that gives you a good idea where this is going.

I really liked this story and particularly the writing style. First, you get the 1940s-50s ‘noir’ flavour in all its charm and pessimism that shades our own present time into a barely recognisable world. We are lead through this bleak and disgusting place by the PI’s voice - one that attracts the reader while at the same warning us of the danger barely below the surface. Yes, I’m impressed!

[Ctgt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting mix of elder gods and hardboiled/noir elements with some really evocative writing

The noise becomes a whisper, a hiss, a celebration, a roar, a black surf breaking on the glaciers of an old, decaying world. It sutures itself into syllables, strings of sounds that could almost be called words if you're feeling generous.

Instead, he extends his tongue, reveals a country of sigils delicately etched onto the red muscle. I don't recognize the language, but their greasy luminance is familiar, a memory of lightless water and the life beneath.

Great stuff

8/10

[K.J. Charles]

Lovecraftian horror gumshoe noir set in contemporary London. As you do.

I enjoyed this a lot, unsurprisingly. Bristling with anger and violence and gory details and a sense of lurking horror, both cosmic and domestic. I felt there could have been a lot more made of it, as the core plot of a full length novel, but there's a sequel so it looks like the author is planning to expand the world. Fabulous cover.

[Alasdair Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

The thing about Private Eyes is they have it easy. Collar up, hat down, mean street beneath their feet and they’re a fictional needle in a fictional groove. The perfect alpha predator protagonist able to do the best they can for the worst of reasons and come out the other side battered, crumpled but alive. And, somehow, looking cooler.
John Persons is a PI. He’s got the patter, he’s got the outfit and he’s got the mindset.
But John Persons has a problem. Two actually. The first is that his true nature struggles against the frame he’s in, pounding on the bars of its meat cage and screaming to be let out.
The second is the case he’s taken and what it will do to him. Worse still, what he will let it do.

Cassandra Khaw’s first Tor novella is a closed fist of a book, a punch withheld far longer than most would manage. It’s also infinitely smarter than you might think and actually dissects three different impossible things at once.
The first is anger, because make no mistake this book is filled with it. Khaw’s prose crackles with savage invention and energy and there are some lines here that are Cormac McCarthy-esque in their lyrical descriptions of the awful. That rage, and the energy it brings, spills out into the characters too. McKinsey,, Persons’ nemesis is an almost embodied will to live at any cost. He’s not mindless but he is single-mindedly determined to survive and with that comes the cold eyed stare of a predator staring down a rival. The scenes between Persons and McKinsey are intimate in a profoundly disturbing way. They understand each other, they recognize each other almost and perform a complex theatrical dance of threat and intimidation that they think will only ever end one way. The last time I saw the psychology of violence handled this well was by Joe R. Lansdale. This is at least his equal.
It also ties into the second impossible thing Khaw manages here. John Persons is a PI but that’s only skin deep. The exact nature of what Persons truly is stands as one of the best reveals in the book but the fact he hides under his iconic outer form is hugely significant. Persons, a name designed to be nothing more than a signifier is both camouflage and life raft. He hides his worse nature and clings to his outer shell to stop that nature coming out. Time and again, Khaw explores the idea of perception as armour, both to hide us and protect us from the world.
Which brings us to the third impossible thing. This is both a phenomenal, and desperately sad, detective story it’s also a queasily effective horror piece. Neither genre gets in the other’s way and Khaw continually crosswires them to create something new and extraordinary that still ties back to the core tenets of the story’s roots. Horror, so often used to obfuscate character or the lack of it, is used here to throw it into stark, desperate relief. A shadow on the wall. The comforting language of an old fashioned gumshoe. The world that moves beneath the street and the skin. The detective at home above and below ground but not quite in himself.

Hammers on Bone is compassionate and enraged, funny and tragic, desperate and measured. It’s a brilliantly executed subversion and celebration of two separate kinds of story and it brings the very best out of both. Buy it, brace for impact and then wait for Khaw’s next.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Hammers on Bone, Cassandra Khaw gives an old-school PI story a cool Lovecraftian update. There's plenty of old-school gumshoe narration (although the story is firmly present-day), along with a heaping dose of ancient gods and gritty mysticism. If this turns out to be the first in a series it is one I'll happily return to.

PI Joe Persons takes on what should be a simple job from an eleven-year-old client: kill the boy's abusive step-father, McKinsey. The appropriately-named Persons (you'll find out why!), naturally, gets more than he bargains for. McKinsey is a meat-suit for something ancient, see, and Persons is being warned off the case by some dame, but he's a dog with a bone now and serious things are afoot, see?

Mostly, I dug the heck out of Hammers on Bone and the way Khaw played with classic private eye tropes in a way that felt fresh with its sleek infusion of horror. Khaw has a terrific voice and can turn a phrase rather nicely, and her writing and cool style have me eager to check out her other stories, notably Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef, but also whatever else she publishes along the way. Joe Person's is a neatly complicated sort, for multiple reasons that I should not actually discuss, and the climax was solidly creepy, gross, and violent. And, jeez, check out that cover illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love - it's beautiful and speaks wonderfully toward the story within.

My only real complaint concerns the novella's brevity. There's a lot of story brewing under the surface of Persons narration that, since this is first person point of view, neither he nor readers are privy to. Khaw nails the sense of epic scope surrounding Persons' case, and I wanted more. By book's end, the plot grew a bit muddied and obscured with some last-minute dangling threads - but, again, if this turns out to not be a standalone title, this niggling detail could resolve itself. Given the nature of Persons and Khaw's impressive writing, I'm certainly game for more and she's definitely an author to watch out for.

[I received an advanced copy of this title for review from the publisher via NetGalley.]

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars. This is the first instalment in the Persons Non Grata series.

PI John Persons' latest client is a ten-year-old boy and the contract he has been assigned is the murder of the boy's stepfather. As he begins to discover who his target really is, he also begins to learn the truth about the monster that lurks inside of him - both figuratively and literally.

This short novella proved to contain a seamless blend of hard-boiled crime and Lovecraftian horror. The former isn't usually to my personal reading tastes and yet I highly enjoyed my time with this story and appreciated every element that it contained.

The concluding twist only cemented this high regard for the story and its creator, and I am eager to continue on with the second instalment and learn more about the horrors that this city, and the one who has placed himself as protector of the innocent, both contain.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unconventional noir novella with the distinct flavor of Mieville and Lovecraft, and a dash of hashtag Elder Gods mythos thrown in. Entertaining if a bit brief, and ecstatic if a bit forced, it is nonetheless a daring mishmash of fun otherworldly ideas.

[Stuart Macmartin · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was that?
After the first few pages I was getting ready to settle into a strong 3 star book, a film noir patina on urban fantasy. What I got was confused stream of consciousness magic creatures are whatever we feel like at the moment, surreal impressions of monster that is supposed to represent something in society perhaps?, apologetic smoking because it's part of the gumshoe persona but it's bad for you and carcinogenic, and some mumbo jumbo mythology at the end. Half way through I'd revised my rating to 2 stars but determined to finish it anyways because it's short. Finished, and well deserving of its final rating. Sorry, but this type of story is not for me.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received to review via Netgalley

Hammers on Bone is a fun novella which blends both noir detective fiction and something that looks to me like the Cthulhu mythos, though I’m not very versed in the latter. It drips with cliches in a way that works, because the main character is a man out of time — straight from hard-boiled detective fiction, despite the modern setting. The story draws you on with the mystery of what exactly John Persons is. It’s apparent from the beginning that he’s a monster, as his client notices, but what kind of monster? What does he want? Is he actually here to help anyone?

At times I felt like I was lacking information, but I think that might be my general unfamiliarity with the Cthulhu mythos. At least, I assume so, from the little I do know. If it’s meant to stand alone, perhaps it’s a little underexplained — though that can make for great uncanny moments. We fear the unknown the most, after all.

I enjoyed the voice, and even if it’s laid on pretty thick, it makes sense and makes for a fun story. I’d happily read more in the same world. It didn’t strike me as exceptional, but it was enough fun to come back to the world again if there’s ever a chance.

Originally posted here.

[Alex Bledsoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for noir crossover stuff. Using the pulp fiction detective form to tell horror, SF, and fantasy stories draws me in almost immediately. This is a trip into Lovecraft territory courtesy of a Hammett-esque PI who's actually an otherworldly monster possessing the body of a dead Londoner (I think; it's a little vague). He's all "dame" this and "kid" that, except in this case the "dame" is Shub-Niggurath and the "kid" isn't what he claims to be, either. I enjoyed almost everything about it, and can't wait to read more.

[Bookwraiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths.

Hammers on Bone is set in present day London and stars a mysterious detective, a creepy kid, and hidden horrors. Powerful, dark and filled with more than a few twists, this is a novella sure to excite fans of Lovecraftian noir.

Following along behind a loner named John Persons, readers are immediately sucked into the story when a young boy tries to hire this private eye to kill his stepfather, McKinsey. The kid explaining that some evil presence has infected McKinsey and will harm him and his brother if nothing is done to stop it. When our hard-nosed detective shows a lack of interest in his circumstances, the youth tells Persons that only he can deal with this entity, because it takes one monster to kill another (or something to that effect).

Written in the first person, Hammers on Bone is filled with 1940s noir atmosphere, plenty of internal monologue by our private dick, and lots of old school alpha dog behavior, as John Persons exhibits all the out-of-time character traits of a man from the past rather than the present. This odd behavior by our protagonist so bizarre, so completely out of touch with modern sensibilities that, at times, a reader is left wondering how a person like this could even exist in today’s PC Culture.

Even more entertaining than Persons’ quirks is whether he is actually what he appears to be. This plot line regarding the true nature of our protagonist a wonderfully developed device by Cassandra Khaw, one she deftly uses to keep her readers turning the pages. Especially entertaining is Persons’ constant snarky comments and revealing thoughts, as these tidbits of information slowly transform him from a man-out-of-time into a weird protagonists more than able to confront the evil, alien presence of McKinsey, as he helm this Lovecraftian horror escapade to its conclusion.

When the cosmic monster noir does end, most of the dangling plot threads are satisfactorily dealt with, though some do remain. There is even the indication there may be more tales coming from private eye John Persons; his story open ended enough to warrant a few more novellas to peel away the layers of his mysterious life.

Complaints (because we all know I have them) about this novella limited to only one: the lack of real suspense. Our antagonist, McKinsey, begins this tale as a powerful, monstrous entity pitted against a fairly odd and old-fashioned private detective, but by the conclusion, the roles have changed dramatically: There being no real doubt that Persons is the more powerful of the two, quite capable of easily taking down his adversary. In fact, the only real question remaining is how our private dick is going to do it and whether there will be any fallout from his release of his less-than-human side. This issue did not ruin the story for me, but it left me less satisfied by the ending than I would have been if the final confrontation had been more evenly matched.

Overall, Hammers on Bone was an entertaining, creative twist on the Lovecraftian model with enough classic noir to give it a unique flavor all its own. Certainly, it wasn’t perfect (But what is?), and I, for one, wouldn’t mind reading a sequel or two about John Persons, because I believe Cassandra Khaw could do some great things with this unique detective story.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehh, it was okay.

I've been wanting to read something from Khaw because her books' covers are so appealing. This was a spontaneous library pick up thanks to its slimness. I'm lukewarm on it, but this won't dissuade me from trying something longer of hers. I would love it to be The Dead Take the A Train, that dayglo cover is endlessly fascinating, but because it's co-authored I won't be able to use that to judge whether I like reading Khaw's stuff or not. I wish co-authored books were required to explain how the partnership worked, I always wonder who wrote what exactly. No, this isn't a review of an entirely different book I haven't read that is only half by this author, but you're forgiven for thinking so at this point. I'll refocus in 3 ... 2 ...

This novella is a lot of things: a noir private dick story about domestic abuse, consent, and the Cthulhu mythos in a modern working-class London neighborhood. It pulls off the hard-boiled tone. Where it lost me was what felt like the author's voice at times. Per the 'about the author' bit, Khaw writes for a number of hip online publications, and some of the writing struck me as just that: a bit too terminally online in tone. The example that sticks with me best is a description of a person "as stubborn as capitalism." That simile completely derailed the actual subject of the sentence. I don't know how clear of an example this is, but it's the one that I remember well beyond my reading time. Other than that, there were moments I found difficult to follow who was doing what.

I liked the horror but I didn't like the specific application of Lovecraft. This isn't restricted to this book, I've seen it elsewhere; it's something about using Cthulhu mythos beings in relatively mundane ways, like Shub-Niggurath is more like a high-level mob boss than something utterly anathema to sanity and known physics. Maybe I'm being picky, I dunno. I may not be expressing myself well; probably Khaw could do it better.

In any case, this was decent, didn't wow me but I'll try something else she wrote.

[Barb (Boxermommyreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this book, I think I would have enjoyed it better had it been a full length novel. All the time I was reading it I kept thinking I had missed reading the first book and since there isn't one, I can only believe I needed more information to make the story work for me.

John Persons is a private investigator with a secret, he not only hunts monsters, he is one himself. So in other word, John Persons really isn't a person at all. One day he is approached by a young boy who wants him to kill his stepfather who is infected with some evil presence and whom the boy believes will eventually harm him and his brother more than he already has. Persons is an interesting character and I hope there is more in this series because I would like to learn more about him. The end indicates there may be additional novellas coming so I must keep my eyes peeled. I did enjoy the "monster" aspect of this book and along the way, Persons meets some pretty interesting characters, some who I found more interesting than him.

If you like fantasy, books with a Lovecraft feel and detective novels with a twist, you should consider giving this one a try. Since it's a novella, you really have nothing much to lose. Also, I was super tempted to give this book 4/5 simply because there are tentacles on the cover but I forced myself to be objective - bummer.

[Brandon Petry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is worth sticking with, even if the hard-boiled aspects don't float your boat at the start, this novella gets some interesting depth the more you read. And it was fun. I'm hooked and will be picking up the second book, A Song for Quiet, as soon as I see it. Tor is killing it lately with these slim novellas. I just finished the very strange (like I'm still not sure how I feel about it but I liked it) The Warren before picking this one up and next I think I will read Mapping the Interior.

And now that I wrote that I stumbled across a handy list of all the books Tor published in 2017 and so many of them look great.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was spectacular. Khaw delivers a killing blow with a tale of modern day noir set in London, with deep Lovecraftian horror, and a hard glance at domestic violence.

The prose in "Hammers on Bone" is wonderful. Subtle, yet impactful. Dripping with atmosphere. Evoking the noirish language while trading blows with pop cultural references. Superb understanding of Lovecraftian Mythos. The list goes on.

John Persons is a gumshoe, hired by a kid to kill his stepfather, who he claims is a monster. John persons is the right man for the job, since he is a monster as well. Yet he bites off more than he can chew and wades into things far beyond the scope of what he envisioned when he was hired.

I truly, truly hope Cassandra Khaw decides to makes this into a series. I would devour novel after novel following John Persons and his dark, bloody, antiheroic world.

[Aliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atmospheric Lovecraftian noir with a really tremendous eye for detail, which packs a lot of (horrible) content in a very slim volume. The one thing for which I deducted one star was that it follows a lot of noir in that the narrator is aggressively misogynistic--it's mostly the narrator, though I wished that the two kids hadn't both been male, as this ends up centring the story on male movers and shakers, with the two female characters relegated to background parts.
If you like Dashiel Hammett and Lovecraft, this is a very effective blend (and set in the UK for a change!)
The ending helps a bit, as it becomes clear the lack of active female roles is partly due to the narrator, but still wasn't altogether happy about that aspect.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great atmosphere, nice blend of noir and many-eyed and tentacled horrors.