Paths Not Taken

by Simon R. Green

ACE, 272 pages, $6.99

From the back cover: “I’m John Taylor. I was born in the Nightside, that square mile in the hidden center of London where it is always the hour of the wolf, where gods and monsters walk side by side and where every dark question ever asked can be answered - for a price.

I left for awhile, but I did come back, to make my living doing what I do better than anyone else: finding things - lost or stolen, real or imagined.

Recently I found the most dangerous thing of all; the true identity of my long-gone mother. Turns out she’s a being who’s been around since before the dawn of history. Then she created the Nightside - and now, for her own warped reasons, she intends to destroy it.

To stop her before she even gets started, I’ve got to do some hard traveling - back in Time, through the eons, into the very distant - and probably deadly - past...”

John Taylor, along with Shotgun Suzie, travels back to the beginnings of Nightside to try and stop his mother Lillith. Along the way they meet Merlin, alive this time as opposed to the ghost that haunts the bar in their present day Nightside, discover the origins of a current time Nightside menace and engage in several bar fights...all the usual mayhem that accompanies John Taylor where ever he goes.

I picked up Mr Green’s first Nightside novel because I love a supernatural mystery. Though the series has evolved into much more than a hard boiled detective with a supernatural twist, this latest entry in the series is a satisfying tale that leaves me eager for the next entry. Recommended - Stephanie L Bannon