I always have mixed feelings when I get my hands on a Novel of the Nightside Book. On one hand, I get a wonderful story that exemplifies darkness and all the evil in the world, on the other hand, I get a book that makes me cringe in just how dark that world is. I will never read a book in this series more than once and this one is no different.

Okay, our anti-hero John Taylor discovered his lineage, and it is not nice. There are a few plot holes, mostly why does John want to go back in time to stop his evil mother. I suspect it might have been covered in the book before this, but I have not read it. The nice thing about these books is while there is a direct lineage between them, each book is a self contained story with only minor references to previous books.

Overall, a good read. Just don't read it anytime before bedtime. ( )

Not as good a book 4, but still entertaining. The relationship that is developing between John and Suzie is surprisingly tender. ( )

This fifth book in the series returns us to the fantastically awful world of the Nightside, a hidden world within London where it is always 3am. Our hero, John Taylor, has learned his mother's identity and begins a trip through time to discover a way to defeat her and save the Nightside she created. Stunningly creative, the Nightside grabs the imagination and keeps you coming back for more in a noir detective series that really is all about the night. ( )

This is not a good standalone. Many of the other books in the series are good standalones but this is a serious bridge book, it's a book that fills in some of the background and the way things will have to go for John Taylor. He has to go into the past to meet with his mother, Lilith, to find ways of dealing with her, meeting up with some pivotal characters and meeting with a lot of the characters and important people in the world.

It's one of the weakest I've read in this series but it's not a bad read, it fills in some gaps and progresses the plot. This is a series that I will have to re-read in sequence some day. ( )

Although this comes after "Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth" according to the publishers, it's set immediately before it. I don't have a problem with that normally, but this time it would have been nice to have read them in chronological order rather than publishers order.

Very much in the same mould, but this time John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie travel into the past, witness the birth of the Nightside and so much more. ( )