Reviewer’s note: the author of the below reviewed book is an internet friend of mine for whom I often serve as a beta reader and who has helped me to promote my own books in the past. So I’m not 100% objective here. But I wouldn’t go to the effort of writing this if I didn’t think this book was worth your attention, dear readers.
We here at Skiffy and Fanty enjoy a good genre mash-up, and in Werewolf Confidential, Justin S. Robinson’s third volume in his City of Devils series*, we’ve got an absolutely smashing example of one.
Several writers have had the idea to combine noir/detective with paranormal fiction, but only Robinson has brought to the task this combination of humor and heart — and a fully imagined world in which movie monsters, all of the movie monsters, not only exist but reign supreme. Ordinary humans are a barely tolerated and hunted minority, living by their wits and only sort of participating in the socio-economic sphere that now includes monkey khan business moguls, zombie gangsters, mummy politicians, vampire lawyers, wendigo baseball stars, blob garbage collectors, deserts acrawl with giant mutant ants, and cops that are generally either werewolves or wolfmen (there’s a difference). This isn’t just gumshoes versus goblins, here, is what I’m saying. Though there are goblins, which, see below.
Navigating the 1950s Los Angeles of this world is one Nick Moss, veteran of both big wars, World War II and the Night War (in which, after the Monsters first emerged by unknown means into reality, they went on to conquer the world), eking out a living as the last human detective. His bread and butter is finding children and young adults who have disappeared, preferably before they are “turned” by whatever monster happened to kidnap them. Sometimes he effects joyous reunions between still-human rescuees and their families, but mostly he has to knock on an anxious family’s door and inform them that little Johnny or Janie is very happy as a gill-man or killer clown or crawling eye or brain-in-a-jar or fifty-foot woman now and is best forgotten.
It would be easy, given this scenario, for Robinson to just churn out missing person plot after missing person plot until we’re all tired of his universe, but that’s not what’s going on here. As with the prior novels in this series, Nick Moss’ assignment only seems straightforward to start. It’s always tied in to bigger and badder schemes and subtexts that further the world-building, deepen Moss’s character, and serve as love letters to Los Angeles’ culture and geography on a par with those of Tim Powers.
Thus Wolfman Confidential is both a labyrinth and a roller coaster ride of seeming climaxes and resolutions as Moss is hired to find somebody, fends off his usual suitors (three very amusing monsters have their weird hearts set on turning him into One of Them) and entertains competing employment offers from both sides of the law — even as he struggles to sort out which side is actually which. The laws governing relations between the monster clans, and when and if it is okay to Turn a human are complex. So are the various criminal networks whose activities pull on and shape this adventure.
Fans of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and of David Bowie’s turn as Jareth the Goblin King are in for a special treat here, as one set of Moss’ adversaries are basically prose avatars of Jareth and his funny-sinister goblins, though both are quite a bit more sinister here. Robinson’s version of what was in store for Sarah is absolutely ghastly, y’all.
As an added bonus, this third volume introduces an important new character, Jane Stitch, an attractive and resourceful female version of Frankenstein’s monster (the generic term for which is “meat golem”) who makes ends meet as a cocktail waitress at a major gangster hangout while working diligently towards her dream of becoming a fashion designer. She all but steals this book and it’s been strongly hinted to me that she will have a book of her very own in the future. I can’t wait.
*The two prior are City of Devils and Fifty Feet of Trouble, both of which I highly recommend. It is not necessary to have read either in order to enjoy Wolfman Confidential, but having done so will enrich your experience. The first book is the most light-hearted, sometimes even silly; the second borders on the downright tragic at times despite occasional scenes played for laughs. Both are monster-iffic.
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