Jules de Grandin: The Man Who Cast No Shadow, The Blood-Flower, The Veiled Prophetess.
And here is a new batch of Jules de Grandin reviews. The previous ones were Jules de Grandin, Occult Detective, and Jules de Grandin: The Dead Hand, The House of Horror, The Grinning Mummy. Warning: SPOILERS.
THE MAN WHO CAST NO SHADOW
There's a shady Eastern European count in town and someone just fainted due to loss of blood...
Crouched over her was the relic of a man, an old, old, a hideously wrinkled witch-husband, with matted white hair and beard. In one hand he held a long, gleaming double-edged dirk while with the other he caressed the girl's smooth throat with gloating strokes of his skeleton fingers.
It's pretty obvious what kind of supernatural menace de Grandin is dealing with from the start, but Quinn throws in some surprises like a second vampire. Sarah had a good backstory, and with the count helping her leave her grave out of vampiric solidarity, they could've made a fearsome duo. Unfortunately, she's dealt with too quickly. Still, the story of the count (who turns out to be a baron) is also good, and this time readers got to see the confrontation between de Grandin and the villain instead of him just describing it to Trowbridge.
THE BLOOD-FLOWER
One of Dr Trowbridge's patients is behaving very strangely, and it may be connected to the wolf howling beneath her window...
Again the cry shuddered through the air, again it rose to a pitch of intolerable shrillness and evil, then died away, and, as we sat stone-still in the shadowy chamber, a new sound, a sinister, scraping sound, intensified by the ice-hard coldness of the night, came to us. Someone, some thing, was swarming up the rose-trellis outside the house!
Another classical monster and another story where the threat is obvious from the start. Of course, with that title, I expected something else, and the titular flowers even turn out to be from Transylvania! The werewolves are creepy - these aren't just bigger wolves. There are some good moments and descriptions, and it was nice to get 2 good stories in a row.
THE VEILED PROPHETESS
A woman claims someone bewitched her husband and de Grandin suspects the famous psychic they went to is involved...
A crystal sphere suddenly appeared in the dark before her, glowing with cold inward fire like a monster opal, and she sank to rest in a carved chair, her long, sinuous hands hovering and darting in fantastic gestures about and above the crystal. On each fore- and little finger there gleamed a green-jeweled ring, so that her writhing hands looked for all the world like a pair of green-eyed serpents weaving a saraband in the purple dark.
This was dull. I expected it to be some sort of scam, maybe even with the husband's help, but Quinn decided to give Madame Naîra real powers. This made her goal - to steal someone's husband - pretty lame. That's it? Really? She also doesn't try to harm her rival and just tells her to leave. De Grandin's explanation for what she was didn't help matters, either. Naîra is just too powerful for such a small story.
HOPE
I found several stories disappointing before these, so it was nice to have some good ones. Unfortunately, the third one was a dud. Hopefully the next ones will be closer to The Man Who Cast No Shadow, The Blood-Flower, and The Tenants of Broussac. Still, I'm going to take a break from Jules de Grandin for a little while.
By Danforth