“You’re solid gold… I’ll see you in hell.”

33. Available Dark – Elizabeth Hand

The second in the Cass Neary series has Cass evading police questioning about her activities in Generation Loss and heading to Helsinki. She’s looking at other photographs kind of like hers, of the dead, who maybe are actually murder victims? For art? The way the total dickweeds in Murder Party wanted to murder someone for art has nothing on these Finnish dudes. Excelsior.

Anyhoo, Cass sort of figures out some things she shouldn’t and then has to run to… Iceland, which is relatively nearby. I was honestly kind of pissed the story didn’t stay in Finland. However, Cass runs into a record nerd ex-boyfriend in Iceland and they quest to find this super reclusive musician in the black desert and it’s pretty cool. I really do like the level of detail in the characters in this series. Bunch of nerdy weirdos, but about lots of creepy shit mostly. It’s fun, give or take the sheer volume of alcohol and drug use they somehow survive.

 

Thorfy takes a lot of drugs every day, well, four with two multiple times per day, but he has congestive heart failure so it’s not recreational. He’s very metal nonetheless.

 

35. Hard Light (Cass Neary #3)

And now, England. Cass’ former boyfriend/once again boyfriend Quinn wants to wrap up Iceland and then meet Cass in London. Unsurprisingly, that does not go smoothly and Cass ends up at a dive bar waiting for Quinn and meeting wacky characters who are more drunk than she is. Maybe even more high. Maybe not, though. It’s hard to get more drunk or high than Cass Neary. Cass does find their drugs or their possible smuggled art or their ties to musicians of a very psychedelic time who participated in occult rituals and now live at a farm on the moors with a barrow of unusual significance. Along the way, there are murders to consider and then the most unexpected thing of all happens – Cass gives her camera to a child at the suspicious farm. I was taken aback and shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

 

She gave away what? How’s she going to take photos and nerd out about not drugs? Thorfy’s surprised, but not surprised, face of stony silence.

 

36. The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)

Soooo…. This one. It’s the last in the series thus far and it went a bit too contemporary for me and also some of the problems she deals with here are exhausting. And far too contemporary, just to re-emphasize needlessly. There are topics I didn’t really think would make it into a Cass Neary novel and at least not one that takes place in England and involves searching for a very special book alongside endless pining for Quinn, who clearly sucks, but as a lone wolf she tends not to have anyone to be upfront about telling her that.

That said, I love cursed books. I love stories about people searching for cursed books and the murdery shenanigans that happen along the way preferably while the supernatural forces surrounding the book choose the book hunting nerds to reveal themselves to instead of the rich people hunting the book for power. It’s like the powers that be are thinking, dude, you could never find that on your own so you hired someone worthy of knowing about our cool magic book. The titular book is on the devious side as well, so, perfect for Cass Neary. I mean, it’s bound in human skin.

So, while a lot of this was more of a slog than the others for me and I do wish it wasn’t so current-time based, I still want to know if there will be more of the series and if Cass gets back to serious photography.

 

Thorfy, as exhausted on his first day with me (out of relief, I assume as he is still here more than five years later), as I was on occasion while reading this one.