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A review by mad_about_books
Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard
5.0
The story is, at times, quite bizarre, and the language has a cloying intimacy. I am particularly attuned to descriptions of drowning because my adult son died this way. I often wonder what it had been like for him. After reading Jonathan Howard's account, I had to put the book aside. The affect his writing had upon my very psyche was profound.
H. P. Lovecraft occupies a rarified stratum in the literary world. His writing engendered a mythos latched onto by any number of writers from those who wrote contemporaneously to those writing now, in the twenty-first century. Readers unfamiliar with his stories will see the name Lovecraft and immediately think porn, or the name Linda Lovelace will spring to mind. Anyone who is a serious reader of genre fiction will respond to such suggestions in the negative, and, usually with, at the very least, a touch of scorn.
At first blush, CARTER & LOVECRAFT is police detective turned PI dime novel the likes of which have been around for decades. However, it doesn't take long to realize that this is no John D. McDonald or Mickey Spillane pulp.
I hate spoilers, and saying more about the actual story would, of necessity, be riddled with them. If you want to know who the eponymous Carter and Lovecraft are, you need to pick up a copy and read about them for yourself. I will say that CARTER & LOVECRAFT was a totally satisfying read, no cliffhanger… a complete novel in every way. That is a refreshing change in a literary world where it seems that far too many books are part of a series. Yet, there is just enough wiggle room here to trigger a sequel or two. Should that ever happen, I will happily read such further adventures.
H. P. Lovecraft occupies a rarified stratum in the literary world. His writing engendered a mythos latched onto by any number of writers from those who wrote contemporaneously to those writing now, in the twenty-first century. Readers unfamiliar with his stories will see the name Lovecraft and immediately think porn, or the name Linda Lovelace will spring to mind. Anyone who is a serious reader of genre fiction will respond to such suggestions in the negative, and, usually with, at the very least, a touch of scorn.
At first blush, CARTER & LOVECRAFT is police detective turned PI dime novel the likes of which have been around for decades. However, it doesn't take long to realize that this is no John D. McDonald or Mickey Spillane pulp.
I hate spoilers, and saying more about the actual story would, of necessity, be riddled with them. If you want to know who the eponymous Carter and Lovecraft are, you need to pick up a copy and read about them for yourself. I will say that CARTER & LOVECRAFT was a totally satisfying read, no cliffhanger… a complete novel in every way. That is a refreshing change in a literary world where it seems that far too many books are part of a series. Yet, there is just enough wiggle room here to trigger a sequel or two. Should that ever happen, I will happily read such further adventures.