The Man from the Diogenes Club

The Diogenes Club #1

by Kim Newman

In the swinging seventies, Richard Jeperson―secret agent of the Diogenes Club―solves crimes too strange for Britain's police. His fashion sense is gaudy, his enemies deadly, his associates glamorous.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories, Mystery, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal

400 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2006

About the author

Note: This author also writes under the pseudonym of Jack Yeovil.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book after reading Newman's excellent contribution to The Fair Folk, which also features an agent of the semi-governmental supernatural investigation agency The Diogenes Club. However, that's the only connection; that short story was set at the turn of the century and this collection is set in the 1970s and later. I prefer the early setting just as a matter of taste, but Newman does a good job with not only the setting but the feel of the 1970s. Several of the stories reminded me of tv programs from that period, especially the little-known "Sapphire and Steel".

I wasn't happy about the way the sequence took a couple of chronological leaps, the first I think three years or so and the second over a decade! There seemed like plenty more adventures that could be written, why rush to pension off your characters? I was frustrated that Vanessa disappeared. Did she retire after suddenly getting married to some guy that we never met at all? What was the thing that Richard couldn't remember? What the hell was up with his clothes?

But still, fun overall.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the 1860s to the present day, the Diogenes Club has been the least-known of Great Britain’s intelligence and law enforcement services. Founded by Sherlock Holmes’s cleverer brother Mycroft, the Club protects the realm – and this entire plane of existence – from occult menaces, threats born in other dimensions, magical perfidy and the Deep Dark Deadly Ones.

This collection of 10 stories features psychic investigator Richard Jeperson and friends as they pursue the mission of the Club. Most occur during the 1970s, which is a nice change from the usual late 19th century settings for these types of books. I enjoyed most of these stories, although they tend to be more of novella length than short story length. I can always count on Kim Newman to bring interesting plots. A handy glossary is included at the back of the book which identifies all of the “Britishisms” for those Americans that might feel lost in some of the slang. However, Mr. Newman’s writing style runs more toward the clever turn of phrase as opposed to clarity, concentrating more on colorful commentary through dialog at the expense of traditional storytelling. At times this becomes overbearing and made me feel a bit lost, like I was missing a few too many inside jokes. But as long as you can hang in there, these stories can be a real treat.

Note that these stories can be read and enjoyed without benefit of having read the author’s “Anno Dracula” series of alternate history novels, even though the Diogenes Club plays a prominent role in those books.

[Marijan Šiško · Rating 4 out of 5]

sama ideja mi se jako svidjela, ali u prvoj knjizi su priče dosta neujednačene, u nekima je stil pisanja tako zbunjujuć da se čovjek brzo pogubi.
trenutno sam na trećoj knjizi u ciklusu i definitivno se autorovo pisanje poboljšavalo kroz vrijeme.

[Charles Prepolec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kim Newman's work always strikes me as having a certain `kid in a candy shop' sort of feel to it, or maybe that's just a reflection of my own enthusiasm for wallowing in a fantasy world so rich in pop culture and literary references that it might make even the most committed Wold Newton enthusiast's head spin! Whatever the case, whether it's Newman or just my own predilection for his work, I find his writing to be infused with an undeniable sense of fun, no mean feat when it also encompasses a range of ghastly ghoulies, murderous madmen and things that generally go bump, squish and splat in the nighttime! Of course it isn't all just a question of revisiting childhood influences as Newman also cleverly weaves in delightful strands of, often biting, social and political satire creating a rich texture that elevates what might otherwise appear as simply wearing his influences, in garish bright colours, on his sleeve. Nowhere is Newman's knack for meta-pastichery more apparent than in the ongoing stories built around his version of the Diogenes Club.

In his all-encompassing vampire epic ANNO DRACULA, Newman reinvented the Diogenes Club more or less along the lines of Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which is to say as a top-secret government organization involved with strange doings (submarine disguised as the Loch Ness monster anyone?). In essence a sort of X-Files/Men in Black outfit keeping England's shores safe from supernatural, psychic and alien oddities, for generations. While Newman has set Diogenes Club stories in differing eras from the 1880s onwards, the present volume concerns itself with stories mostly set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, not coincidentally a period in which a young Kim Newman (b. 1959) would have been at his most impressionable. The influence of Doctor Who, The Avengers/New Avengers, Hammer Films, Department `S', The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, etc...as well as a wealth of occult mystery related books in vogue at the time, are patently obvious and concentrated in the development of über-flamboyant psychic investigator Richard Jeperson, and his assistants the `model beautiful', but lethal, Vanessa and the ever-reliable policeman Fred Regent. On the most superficial level think blend of Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost Finder with The Avengers and Jason King and you wouldn't be far off the mark.

The eight stories in THE MAN FROM THE DIOGENES CLUB rounds up nearly all of the previously published Jeperson series, but also includes The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train, which is unique to this collection. In the introductory Fred Regent story The End of the Pier Show our heroes visit a seaside town where old men hankering after a return to the `good old days' of 1941 have magically created an apport to do just that. Vanessa risks brainwashing at Pleasant Green, a psychiatric vetting center for highly placed government employees, only to see the mysterious Mrs. Empty slip away to inflict untold damage on a future generation in You Don't Have to Be Mad. When an award-winning author is found bludgeoned to death with his own Hugo in the not-so-utopian futuristic experiment of Tomorrow Town, the Diogenes Club is called in to investigate. The Bunning family crypt seems to be the focus of ghostly manifestations in abandoned Kingstead Cemetery causing the Diogenes Club team to prevent mass murder by a madman with a pharaoh-fetish in Egyptian Avenue. When dirty DI Booth is found squashed flat in the center of the Soho sex-trade, the Diogenes Club comes up against holier-than-thou hypocrites, pimps, mobsters, a legendary burlesque queen and an invisible Soho Golem. When real deaths mimic those on a popular Northern soap series, Jeperson and co. suspect voodoo and join the cast in an effort to get to the bottom of The Serial Murders. In Newman's tour de force new novella The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train we flash back to the 1950s as Jeperson relates the tale of the tragically haunted Scotch Streak, involving American missile codes, a medium, ghostly manifestations, how he met Vanessa and came to be the Most Valued Member of the Diogenes Club. Finally, it's 2003 and an aging Richard Jeperson is called in to visit the hereditary island kingdom of Skerra to stop a power-mad scientist from destroying the world in the James Bond homage Swellhead. Rounding out the book is an after word from Newman, explaining the evolution and development of the Jeperson series, and a good-sized glossary to help non-Brits understand some of the specific cultural and slang references. All enveloped in a suitably stylish day glow cover by John Picacio.

While some stories are certainly better than others, The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train alone being worth the cover price, there is always plenty of humour, lots of strange goings-on, vast pop culture, literary and television references to strain the brain and even a bit of political and social commentary in the inimitable Kim Newman style, all of which makes for a thoroughly engaging collection. Now all we need is a similar collection featuring the exploits of previous Diogenes Club members from the 1890's (Charles Beauregard and Kate Reed) and 1920s (Edwin Winthrop and Catriona Kaye). THE MAN FROM THE DIOGENES CLUB is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys retro-fueled psychic detective stories with a cool Avengers vibe!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know whether it's the anthology nature of the book or just the obvious fact that Richard Jeperson is the Jason King post-Thatcherite England needs and not the Jason King it deserves, but I spent most of the book thinking "this should have been an awesome TV show." Which it would have. But that's a distracting thought to entertain when one's not trying to watch TV.

I'm coming to the Diogenes Club after reading the first two Anno Dracula books, and the contrast is disarming. I'd gotten used to studying details in background characters, looking for the clue that would let me identify another obscure historical or literary figure in a crowd scene, and so the relative lightness of the prose took some adjustment; there's nothing metatextual to sink your teeth into here, which pushes the story and original characters into a more central role.

But, given that, the intertextuality with the Anno Dracula books is frustrating to a literal-minded reader like me. Jeperson, for example, is a second-generation protégé of an Edwin Winthrop who was involved in the defeat of the Red Baron in the first World War, but he can't be the same Edwin Winthrop from Bloody Red Baron, as the Diogenes Club books take place in a world where Vlad Tepes never ruled England and Manfred von Richthofen was presumably no vampire. Or: at another moment, Jeperson hints that the Diogenes Club knows who Jack the Ripper was, but it can't be the same culprit as in Anno Dracula, again because of that 20th-century-history-hasn't-been-rewritten-with-vampires-at-center-stage thing. It's all very clever and well-handled, with the nods to Newman's other works working well where I recognize them, but apparently-inconsistent backstory gets to me on that grating "it was all a dream" level.

I found all but one of the stories satisfying, and with several standouts ("The Man Who Got Off The Ghost Train" and "Tomorrowtown" were both tremendously fun, and in entirely different genres). And it was satisfying now to read a book in which Margaret Thatcher is treated with the contempt she deserves, at this moment when British culture is moving into a whole "but now she's demented literally and not just metaphorically-as-an-apt-description-of-her-moral-character and therefore let's pretend she wasn't a reptilian monster" phase of pseudoreverence.

[Randy Money · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent story collection featuring the exploits of Richard Jeperson of the Diogenes Club. The club was formed by Mycroft Holmes -- a men-only club for the unclubable, the majority of rooms strictly silent -- but also as cover for a secret, quasi-governemental agency, in charge of keeping the ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties in check. Also the invaders from other dimensions and our less trustworthy home-grown Talents.

Newman is chatty and snarky and very nicely shares a glossary of terms and allusions that a Yank like myself needs. The first six stories are set in the 1970s, Jeperson a dapper dandy with a crew of two, facing insurmountable odds and surmounting them. One of the things I like about these stories is that the resistance to the threat isn't always violent, but thoughtful; Jeperson aims to preserve life when possible and he tends to react to violence rather than initiate it.

The seventh reflects the change in tone in England between the 1970s and the Thatcher years of the 1980s. The last shows Jeperson coming out of retirement to face another threat.

This is all tied to Newman's Anno Dracula series, and I recommend the stories as something like comfort reading, rollicking, often funny pulp adventure in a time of uncertainty.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a lot of trouble with this, both in terms of style and content. It didn't sit right with me right from the start, and at one point I thought I might have picked up a kids book by mistake.

The plot was ragged, there was always an easy-out (... thankfully, just as the situation seemed hopeless...), and I found the whole thing rather tacky.

So it goes.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

At his best, Newman writes stories that are a glorious fusion of real and imagined history, combined with a cast of characters, some of his own creation and others (often obscure) drawn from literature and cinema. At his worst, he produces stories that read like an encyclopedia of SF, horror and pop culture written in prose form. The short stories in The Man from the Diogenes Club fall mostly on the good side of Newman's works, but are not nearly as well done as Anno Dracula and Bloody Red Baron. These stories are generally fun, and none are real stinkers, but, on the other hand, none really stand out. All focus on Richard Jeperson, a top agent of the Diogenes Club, and are set mostly in the 1970s with a supernaturally-oriented Avengers (Mr. Steed not Marvel Comics) feel to them. Newman has a somewhat disconcerting habit of re-writing his characters from book to book: often the same characters (and even organizations, like the Diogenes Club itself) have similar origins but divergent histories. As a result, characters appear who had quite different histories - in the Anno Dracula “timeline” (Edwin Winthrop – who also appears in Jago -, Geneviève Dieudonné, Katherine Reed – also in Angels of Music -), as well as Derek Leech (Quorum), Anthony Jago (Jago), Catriona Kaye (English Ghost Story, Secrets of the Drearcliff Grange School). Newman blames Michael Moorcock for this habit. Maybe I’d like this collection better if the 1970s weren’t one of my least favorite decades. 3 stars.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odd book.
It's a big volume, but I felt after reading that I'd read several books.

So, think back to all the supernatural detectives you've already read. Now mentally review some TV and movies from several decades, including the ones Newman admits were influences: the Avengers, Doctor Who, Austin Powers, etc. If you know pop culture since the 60s you'll do even better. OK, *now* you can evaluate this book.

Ten stories take us through the career of Richard Jeperson, with each story making sure to provide a detailed description of RJ's outrageous outfits. Think Fourth Doctor in Carnaby Street, on LSD.

The action in each story is well developed, even if the supernatural structure is rather casual, by which I mean that things seem to become possible because the author requires them, not because the things already posited make them inevitable. If that sounds like I think he was making it up as he went along, well, draw your own conclusions. But the overall plots were well laid out. And quite a few of the characters are ones you just want to follow and see how they do.

The book mentions just about everyone who's ever been anyone in supernatural fiction, and may gove you some ideas for future reading.

Enjoyable, if not quite a lit'ry triumph.

[Ari · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was fundamentally unreadable. It's in a similar setting to a great deal of other urban fantasy -- "secret British government agency to deal with the occult" -- but I can think of three or four better-done versions of this (Laundry Files, Rivers of London, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell).

None of the characters were interesting or believable. None of them seem to think or have any interiority; they just do things like authorial puppets. There are a few clever turns of phrase, but the authorial voice wasn't interesting enough to carry the book. The word-building lacks any particular charm.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful romp that's a hybrid of the old TV series The Avengers and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and a good dash of Austin Power's fashion sense). A collection of short stories about Britain's top paranormal investigator, Richard Jeperson, an agent of the Diogenes club—the "least-known branch of the United Kingdom's intelligence and investigative services." Jeperson faces threats ranging from Nazi demons to pornqueen enchantresses to haunted trains.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

wish I could give this seven stars

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This massive collection contains almost all the novellas featuring Richard Jeperson— the man from the Diogenes Club, accompanied by his trusty companions. Thus, for admirers of Jeperson, this book is almost a "completist's heaven", to quote Newnan.
Here we have~
1. The End of the Pier Show;
2. Moon Moon Moon;
3. You Don’t Have to Be Mad;
4. Tomorrow Town;
5. Egyptian Avenue;
6. Soho Golem;
7. The Serial Murders;
8. Cold Snap;
9. The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train;
10. Swellhead.
It also contains a Glossary— invaluable for non-Brits to properly enjoy these quintessentially British works. It also has a 'Afterword' describing the genesis of the character and the setting.
The stories are brilliant, showcasing Newman's skills in infusing crime, mystery, occult, psychological insights, wit, and chilling horror. But word of caution, these works should be read with some spacing in-between. Otherwise things may get too bleak, despite all the wit.
My only dissatisfaction came due to the ommission of 'The Man on the Clapham Omnibus' from this collection. That case might have happened in an alternate timeline. But it’s practically impossible to find now!
Recommended, wholeheartedly.

[Carolyn Fitzpatrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Austin Powers meets X-files. The main characters conveniently both have significant amnesia, possibly the author's attempt to justify their complete lack of depth. Half of the content was about the exact size, shape, and opacity of the clothes of female characters. All of which are hot, while the men are uniformly shlubby. The book itself is a collection of short stories featuring the same investigators, rather than a single story with an actual story arc. The individual stories are so bizarre as to be completely unpredictable, but with plenty of violence and torture. The result is disorienting - you are thrown into one scenario and have no time to get your bearings before being launched into a completely new setting. I'm not sure how this ended up on my to-read list, but it gives pulp a bad name.

[Simon Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read any of Newman's books before and picked this up on the strength of the cover alone. It just jumped out of the display and the book blurb sealed the deal.
In this collection of 10 stories, featuring the psychic detective Richard Jeperson (a Jason King pastiche) Newman exploits and subverts the spy/detective/ghost hunter genres to great effect. There are some great stories here. "The Man Who Got Off The Ghost Train" though is the star of the piece; an absolute gem of a ghost story.

[Aramiheartilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories I liked more than others but overall a solid 3 stars.

[Bethnoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of books by Kim Newman and enjoyed them all, but find that I have a preference for his female heroes. So I began this book certain I would enjoy it, but ambivalent about the main character. I am happy to report that I am now a much bigger fan of Richard Jeperson than I used to be.

The stories cover many years of his life and the vulnerability of his later years made him much more appealing to me than his younger hubris. Not all of the stories were new to me, but it was excellent to read them all together in one place.

(re-read of different edition)

[André Odendaal · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Dr Who for the occult and like that series the hero solves each mystery with a pompous wave and non-sequitur which is very annoying. It feels very insubstantial and fake

[St. Just · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I got this book for Christmas and read it because of the endearingly pulpy cover art, and I suppose ‘endearingly pulpy’ is probably the most charitable summary of it I can think up. Or, well, maybe pulpy isn’t quite the right word. ‘70s Kitsch? Schlock? It’s got real b-movie-barely-keeping-a-straight-face energy, if you know what I mean. Very Hellboy-by-way-of-Austin-Powers.

And, okay, that sounds really mean. It’s just very airport quality literature, I guess? Like, the most sincere(ly) damning praise I can give the thing is that it’s retroactively made me appreciate the prose and originality and restraint in all the other genre fic I’ve read recently. Which isn’t to say the prose or storytelling are bad, really. Just, well, uninspiring?

Though beyond the actual quality of prose, I am really kind of curious whether all the really eyeroll inducing stuff was intentional genre emulation of old pulps or if published writers do just write Like That. I guess if the short stories were originally scattered across anthologies and such it would be a bit less overwhelming, but at a certain point the amount of wordcount spent on Richard’s hair, outfits and fancy cars, and the filling of the rest of the cast with unpleasant/middle aged/fat/brutish/balding men and beautiful young or preternaturally ageless women does just become a bit much. (The fact that one of the major supporting characters is, its repeatedly emphasized, an absolutely gorgeous redhead who basically walked out of that one Strong Female Characters webcomic and who is brainwashed or possessed as a key part of multiple stories doesn’t particularly help, granted. Always in a sexy way, of course).

The plots themselves are usually fun enough, but, well, it’s a collection of short stories all sharing the same main character, so there’s a fairly hard limit on how much real sense of danger or suspense you can get for any given one (though being honest it’s not like that line is ever really approached). Really it’s rather like some old superhero cartoon or bond movie – by far the most interesting thing in the stories are the various bizarre and wacky villains and their schemes. Really at a certain point you end up rooting for the hippie moon wizards trying to destroy the Apollo mission before it lands, or the early-porn-star-turned-occult-dancer-turned-wife-of-Mythos-worshipping-puritain-crusader, or the sleazy writer/director who does hits by writing a thinly fictionalized version of the victim getting horribly killed as a plotline in his massively popular daytime soap ritual and Britain’s collective unconscious and a bit of magic do the rest (they really are by far the best part of the book).

Really, I’m sure I’m being a bit harsh – the whole thing would make some great very tongue-in-cheek shorts to watch and tear the shit out of with friends while drunk. Very, like, mediocre power-fantasy anime. The occasional gestures towards self-awareness (the ‘psychic’ book with a version of the protagonist who solves every cast via seduction, the psychic who rewrites the world into the imagined story operated on Bond Villain rules with them as the villain) honestly hurt more than they help, at least to me.

But anyway, I really am probably being more negative than the thing deserves. It’s just very much not for me, I suppose.

(Not really going to bother going into the book’s politics, except to say that Thatcher being the great work of a psychic brainwashing program designed to remove all human feeling from her did make me smile for a second).

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Man in the Diogenes Club

This isn’t the first book that I’ve picked up by Mr. Kim Newell, and for that reason, I was hesitant to pick it up. It wasn’t something that was on my radar or my list - it was just a random pick up from the library shelf, and that is because I must admit that I am not a fan of this author. It isn’t that his work is terrible or that his ideas are bad because it’s certainly not true, but his writing style doesn’t resound with me. This book did not change my mind on that.

Though, if you’re looking for something fresh, plots that you have never conceived of and well-worn characters, this book is worth it. Each story that follows the Man of the Diogenes Club and his adventures are imaginative, crazy, retro, descriptive and more than a little confusing at times and don’t always wrap up in a pretty box with a big red bow.

However, if you’re not a fan of science fiction, British slang, wacky fashion sense and women that are supposed to be bad-ass but always come off as one-dimensional, then maybe skip this one. I’m glad it’s just a borrow because I probably will not be reading it again.

6/10

[Charlie Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This looked to be good. However, the title is pretty much clickbait, The Club only features occasionally and has little or nothing to do with Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.

Unlike other reviewers, I don't mind short stories, so I thought I would be OK. However, these stories were written at different times and with different internal time periods. This means there is no smooth transition between stories. (I have just finished a series which jumps forward about 5 to 10 years with each collection, but this works in context. This book is more jarring.)

The basic idea is fun and the nod to Jason King is great fun for those of us who grew up when that was on tv. But, it does tend to limit Richard Jesperson, as there is only a relatively short period when his appearance and esp. his resemblance to Peter Wyngarde would have been meaningful to the public of his own generation, let alone readers 50 years later. His clothing is much more overstated than Jason King's for the most part and by the end of this book, his appearance would be positively odd and would make it difficult for him to remain in the background or unnoticed. In the 1970s, Richard Jeperson is still wearing winklepickers, which I saw around 1962-3 and hardly ever thereafter. So Richard is now behind the times rather than ahead of it.

Obviously, the author cannot help when he was born, but his writing sometimes clashes with what some of us remember of the years before the 1970s. Some of his comments are odd and others are basically odd. The Beatles had broken up by the 70s and while still honoured and applauded, they were hardly the "Sound of the 70s".

There are other anachronisms, such as suggesting that Bruce Lee first invented his martial art and it was only later becoming known as Kung Fu. This is almost exactly the wrong way around. Kung Fu is a kind of popular name for Chinese martial arts and both the arts and the name predate Bruce Lee by a long way. Lee first trained in Kung Fu, specifically Wing Chun/Ving Tsun and wrote about traditional Kung Fu/Gung Fu - in his dialect. It was somewhat later that he began to develop his own martial art, which included a number of techniques and strategies imported from Western Boxing and esp. Fencing alongside Chinese and other techniques. However, in his films, his art is always presented as purely Chinese and as superior to other nation's martial arts. For someone who grew up at this time and with a knowledge of Cinema, I am surprised that the author should make such a mistake.

One character complains about the modern world and gets a whole litany of items wrong. Just to take a few, Hire Purchase is very old and is not a post-War invention. Dried soup is also a few centuries old and again did not come into existence post WW2. Strictly speaking, even the comment about speed on trains is incorrect, since the pre-War Mallard hit 126 mph. The only comment that is even close to accurate is about decimalisation. (The author seems to be confused about when the first decimal coins were in circulation.)

The members of the Diogenes Club are so conservative they won't watch ITV, so it seems unlikely they would watch the minority colour coverage of Apollo 11 on BBC 2 rather than the extensive black and white coverage on BBC 1.

Someone who is undercover notices gas and decides not to panic in order to maintain her cover. But this means "going with it" and settling down to sleep - whilst not knowing if she is going to die. This seems very counter-intuitive, esp. since any normal person who noticed the gas would be anything but calm. Thus, her behaviour actually stands out as very odd and risks drawing attention to her rather than hiding her.

There are numbers of factual errors, somewhat too many to report, although I may edit this review if I can. They include the description of a chin-strap beard (with a shaved upper lip) a Puritan beard, although it is much more associated with groups arising out of Anabaptism, such as the Amish and Mennonites. This is an odd detail to include, esp. given it is incorrect. Another example is that he claims Victorians were all about surface details but didn't care about what was hidden. Anyone who knows anything about Victorian engineering knows this is rubbish. There is an old pumping station that is hidden from public view but which is highly decorated, with polished brass and high quality surfaces. A Trilby, a relatively small British hat, is identified as a "movie gangster" hat, but movie gangsters usually wore the larger Fedora. And so it goes on.

Oh, and Richard is a snob. Despite being a foreign refugee who learned his English from the Radio, specifically "Dick Barton" and "Journey into Space", he despises those who do not sound like him and dreads the day when newsreaders and cabinet ministers and Harley Street specialists sound like characters from a "Northern" soap opera. I am not sure if the latter is true, even nowadays, but what is his problem? It seems the author is having a go at Harold Wilson and other Labour MPs. It is odd that he thinks a world where the vast majority of English dialects and speech patterns are hidden behind a narrow perception of "received pronunciation" is somehow more "authentic" than a world where we recognise that the vast majority do not sound like they went to public school and are possibly even posher than the Queen.

The stories are moderately enjoyable and could be better if they weren't so disconnected and bitty. They hold the skeleton of something much better but they remain too poorly fleshed out.

[Pól · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cracking stuff. Like getting all new episodes of your favourite British telefantasy show from the 60's or 70's (Classic Who, Department S, The Avengers...) seasoned with a wry dose of modern perception. Glorious, glorious fun stuff.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Austin Powers crossed with Men in Black with a little X-Files thrown in.

[Chuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, a collection of previously published stories with a long glossary (which is partly UK slang and partly terms/people of particular interest to the stories) and an afterword describing how the stories came about. I am a fan of Newman's Anno Dracula books and this has a lot of the same sensibilities, but it's mostly short episodic adventures. A lot of it almost feels like if the Lord Darcy stories happened in the swinging 70s. It seemed a bit long though, if I was reading it again I'd do one story at a time. There is a continuity between them all (and some characters from some of his other books), but it's not like a long novel.

[Kelly Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I reckon you've got to be a die-hard sci-fi fan to get into these tales. There are too many silver space suits for my liking. I normally enjoy Newman's idiosyncratic style but these collection of linked stories are very much of their time and I'm not feeling particularly retro at the moment. I'm certainly not comfortable with this particular era of sexual, social and cultural upheaval. It's too awkward.

One thing of note, though, is the clear 'inspiration' for Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series - if I hadn't started this book I'd never of known that Mr Aaronovitch was quite such a plagiari.......ahem....devotee of Kim Newman.

[Infinite Scythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing: great. Incredibly detailed and elaborate, the type of fantasy/sci-fi that I like to read.
Plot & pacing: interesting and unique. Pacing varied depending on the story. Obviously some were more my pace than others.
Characters: a bit flat imo. They had personalities and eccentricities but I didn’t feel invested in their well being.
Overall: There were moments when I felt like the story was lacking conviction and appeal. It was interesting, but it didn’t pull me in and make me want to continue reading. The time gaps between stories was also a bit jarring at times and unclear.
Would recommend: sure

[Greg Sheppard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cause this is a collection of short stories it's somewhat hard to review as a single entity.

I saw another review saying you come away feeling like you've read several books. And that's my kind of main issue. The first half of the book is fantastic but the second half of the book is a bit too long and some of the stories are a too long. It ends up being more like a collection of novellas. But the tighter stories of the first half are the stand outs.

But broadly it's really good.

And I'm very much in favour of the quite astute (sometimes) attacks on the cruel, mean and diminishing nature of Thatcherism that are liberally sprinkled throughout the book.

[Mikey Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't lie, I hadn't realised that this was a collection of short stories when I bought it. Looking back, it's probably best it is, as I'm not sure that the characters could have remained entertaining for a full length.

Characters jumped in and out of the stories; some were less than welcome, and at least one I think I'd like to see explored more. No one was ever fully realised though.

I've liked some of the Dracula books, and enjoyed this Avengers pastiche. Groovy.

[Ross McPherson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't even get through all the stories. References seem just to be there for the author to prove he grew up in the 70's, in Britain, and he's kind of well read. But if you aren't British it is tedious to read at times, and the stories themselves do not have good enough narratives to really keep my interest.

[Đorđe Otašević · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volim Njumena još od Anno Drakula serijala. Vjerujem da bih se dobro zapio sa njim negdje u nekom pabu u Londonu. Ova zbirka priča je kako i sam kaže amalgam gomile detektiva i likova iz popularne kulture i njihovih doživljaja. Zanimljiva i čitljiva, na momente komplikovana i ponekad nedorađena ali svakako dobra.