MarzAat

My look at Byron Craft’s Arkham Detective series continues.

Review: Death on the Arkham Express, Byron Craft, 2019. 

I’ll just spoil the next posting and say this is my favorite Arkham Detective story.

There’s a couple of reasons for that.

First, the Detective actually does more detection work in this than in the other stories. Second, while using a Cthulhu Mythos story as a jumping off point, it’s not an H. P. Lovecraft story. And, no, I’m not going to tell you which one.

The Detective is returning on a train from New York City after delivering an extradited suspect.

Then a waiter gets his head ripped off. It’s not like there’s any other law on the train to investigate the matter. Well, there is a Pennsylvania Station Railroad detective, but our narrator makes it clear, brandishing his trademark Colt .45, that he’ll be leading the investigation.

And the murders continue.

One of the most suspicious guys on the train is a writer for Weird Tales who spouts some Lovecraftian theories on horror and how Arkham epitomizes it.

There’s plenty to like here: detection, lots of action, Craft’s description of the down and out state of the Arkham Express and its staff shortages, and a plot twist which uses a science fiction motif I’m fond of.