Review: The Domino Men

Jonathan Barnes’ second London-in-peril fantasy (after “The Somnambulist”) features madcap hilarity and grotesque cruelty, sometimes in the same sentence.

The first half of the book sparkles with tantalizing mysteries, strange, sinister characters who may or may not be the good guys, romance, sudden dangers, droll satire and wonder. The second half turns dark, chaotic and, well, mind-numbing.

The story is set in the same alternate universe as “The Somnambulist,” but in the present day instead of early 20th century. It’s a sequel in that there are a few common elements – including a top-secret spy organization with special powers called the Directorate, and the Domino Men, supernatural sadists dressed as schoolboys who get their giggles from torture and mayhem. The Domino Men have been caught and imprisoned by the Directorate.

The narrator and protagonist is Henry Lamb, a shy, passive file clerk who is in love with his new landlady, Abbey, but terrified of showing it. Henry’s sole distinction is his childhood role in a TV series written by his larger-than-life grandfather. Henry’s one line was the show’s sign-off catchphrase: “Don’t blame me. Blame grandpa.”

And now Granddad has had a stroke and is in a coma in the hospital. Henry is his only visitor. And Henry’s life as he knows it is about to end.

But first – the book starts with a short prologue that immediately sets the tone. It’s 1967, a decade before Henry is born. A young woman, drugged, her head shaved, is tied onto a chair in the flat where Henry will later live. A man lifts a knife into the air. “Just before the blade bit into her flesh, he told her the same thing that, four decades later, he would say to me.

For Henry it starts when a window washer falls five stories and lands at Henry’s feet outside the hospital. He calls to Henry by name and says, “The answer is yes. The answer is yes!’”

Or maybe it starts when Henry is whisked out of his filing job and meets the head of the Directorate, a man named Dedlock who floats in a tank of amniotic fluid somewhere in a hidden dimension of the London Eye (a huge Ferris wheel offering a view of the city).

It takes Henry a while to realize that the window washer’s gasping exhortation was in reference to the strange phone calls he’s been receiving offering window glazing. Once this dawns on him and he says “yes” instead of “no” to the window glazing, an ally enters his life.

Which Henry very much needs since no one in the Directorate finds it necessary to tell him anything. “At the Directorate, we don’t deal in volunteers….You’re one of us now.”

The Directorate, we soon learn, has one purpose – to save London from a pact Queen Victoria made with Leviathan, a supernatural creature who wants to take the city and its souls. Henry has a crucial part to play, though no one seems to be quite sure what it is.

His first task is to get the Domino Men to tell him how to find Estella, the Directorate agent who can save the city. Henry’s granddad hid her and it looks like he’s going to take that secret to his grave.

As the story proceeds, a mysterious new narrator enters. Sneering and contemptuous of Henry, this new voice tells of events on the Windsor side of things. The 60-year-old Prince of Wales, Arthur, who has never amounted to much, falls prey to a strange disrespectful fellow who toys with his mind and introduces him to the history of Leviathan and Victoria.

As the players get more and more out of hand, pushing the action to cataclysm, the bloody chaos and Henry’s continuing passivism create a disjointed cacophony, making some readers (like this one) feel more frustrated than intrigued.

Still, the dark humor, visual prose and odd characters have their appeal, particularly to fans of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett

Please Note: Books reviewed are usually provided by the publisher, author, or an agent. Reviewers usually get to keep the book.

Book Review: The Domino Men

Please Note: Books reviewed are usually provided by the publisher, author, or an agent. Reviewers usually get to keep the book.