JH Lillevik

Mixing Victorian criminal slang and fantasy may not sound like the first thing that should pop into your head as an idea for a book, but it should.

Douglas Hulick’s first book in The Tales of the Kin series revolves around the Kin member Drothe. He is a Long Nose, which basically entails that he sticks his nose into business that doesn’t necessarily concern him. He works for an Upright Man and he has done so for many years. Rubbing elbows with criminals and finding information is right up his alley, so when his boss asks him to investigate who might be leaning on his people in the district of Ten Ways, he does not hesitate.

The book is written in first person narrative, so it reads like a memoir, kind of like Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire-series. And like Mark Lawrence’s books describes a dark and gritty world, where you can meet an unfortunate end in an narrow alley at the end of a pointy and sharp dagger. I have a great affinity for such books and this did not disappoint. Hulick drags you thru a world where the ruthless win and the meek inherit nothing. As Drothe tells the story, you as a reader do not know more about the world than he does. When he discovers an answer to a question, so do you. His use of criminal slang from the Victorian Age and older, gives the book an authenticity that made-up slang could not.

Now, I’m not one to give grades to the books I write about, as they are merely suggestions to what I think you as a reader should read, but this book I highly recommend and you should read it in candlelight.