The Book of Dead Days

‘Darkness’, the first word of the novel, immediately establishes an atmosphere of menace and brooding evil and the Joyce-like repetition thereafter of ‘dark’, ‘darkening’ and ‘darkness(es)’ foregrounds a sense of death, decay and degradation throughout. Set in ‘City’, a nameless metropolis of soaring citadels, subterranean catacombs and a labyrinth of streets, criss-crossed by canals, The Book of Dead Days is an impressively atmospheric novel.

At the centre of the story is the relationship between Valerian, a seemingly Vaudevillesque magician – the book begins midway through his ‘Man in Two Halves’ illusion – and his servant, Boy. But Valerian is more than just a stage magician. Part Frankenstein, part Faustus, he is a Natural Philosopher who has made a mysterious pact with a demonic power. In three days’ time, he will pay the price for the bargain he struck 15 years previously…

A lot can happen in three days – even ‘dead’ ones. There is body-snatching. And murder. Even burial alive. And the novel concludes with a gripping chase – The Third Man-like – in a monochromatic underworld of waste water. The Book of Dead Days is deliciously gothic in atmosphere and gripping to read.