Review – Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata, Book 1) by Cassandra Khaw (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror
Length: 110 pages
Publisher: Tordotcom
Release Date: October 11, 2016
ASIN: B01FQQ403A
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in Persons Non Grata series
Source: Free ebook from Tordotcom
Rating: 3/5 stars
“John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.
He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.
As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.”
Series Info/Source: I got a free copy of this ebook through Tordotcom. This is the first book in the Persons Non Grata duology.
Thoughts: This was an okay novella. It is an investigative urban fantasy blended with a Lovecraftian horror. It’s basically about an investigator named Persons who is paid by a boy to investigate his evil stepdad, McKinsey. McKinsey may be infected with something dark that is spreading throughout the city. As the story continues we find out the Persons himself is not really all that human either.
This was okay. The language used is very noirish and over the top. A lot of things aren’t explained or described well and the events and people are more hinted at than actually developed. You just kind of have to relax and go with it because it doesn’t make a lot of sense in general.
I did enjoy the idea of a dark eldritch god becoming a private investigator. I also liked the idea of this PI fighting other dark evils. I also enjoyed the twist that happens at the end with the boy. However, even though I enjoyed the ideas here I thought the execution left a lot to be desired. The writing just didn’t flow well at all.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay but not great. I like some of the ideas here but a lot of things are left very ambiguous and the story feels disjointed and hard to follow. I don’t plan on reading the second novella in this series. This was a quick read, so it wasn’t a huge time commitment for this little dark mystery.
