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The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
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The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
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I don't know if the author plans any more stories featuring these two, but if they're written I'll be happy to read them.
Sure, that first chapter sort of startled me...but then it was a ghost who had been killed mid---well, won't spoil it for others. It was a short story that inspired the rest of the book, so I guess I got over it quickly (and, frankly, it was hot). :)
Robert Caldwell has a ghost. He tries to ignore it, but the bleeding walls finally force him to call in help. Help comes in the form of Simon Feximal, noted occultist, and Robert finds himself inexorably drawn to the steel-haired muscular man who smiles so rarely.
This fascinating book, presented as the posthumous journal of a well-known popular writer in the Watson/Holmes mold, begins with what appear to be two stand-alone short stories—cases. Then the storylines quickly become intertwined, much as do the lives of Robert and Simon.
Once again we have inked skin, but in this case it is not tattoos, but magic words, that swirl across the surface of Simon Feximal’s body. At first we simply follow the cases as Robert narrates them; but gradually we are drawn into the background of Simon’s history, and learn the dark truth that made him the man he is. Robert’s journalistic eye becomes a useful tool, slowly revealing itself to be an occult gift that makes him a necessity in Simon’s life.
Charles seems to have a knack for presenting a plausible image of queer life in Victorian London, and by offering us characters who have to deal with the dangers of a hostile social world (once again, Oscar Wilde is mentioned in passing, to remind us) she makes them real. The contrasting notion that ghosts and the occult are accepted as normal parts of modern life that simply have to be dealt with by professionals throws Simon and Robert’s relationship into higher relief. Charles also introduces historical figures who were celebrated in the world of the occult in the 1890s, thus reminding us that in her modern fiction there is historical truth in the human fascination with the world below.
What we also get in this book is a very vivid sense of the human need for power; not just a greed for wealth, but the deep desire to control and manipulate others to your own ends. The Magpie novels are more overtly magical—as are Jordan Hawk’s Whyborne and Griffin books, which even take on a science-ficton tone as they progress. Simon Feximal’s world is full of fearsome things, but they are all—mostly—human things. The difference is subtle, but compelling.