Hell to Pay (Nightside Series #7)

by Simon R. Green

Overview

The name’s John Taylor. I’m a PI, though what I really do is find things that are lost. I work the Nightside, the city within the city of London, where the sun never rises and where the human and inhuman go to get their kicks, provided they’re willing to pay the price in whatever currency the seller demands.
           
In the wake of the war that almost brought the Nightside to total ruin, there’s a power vacuum begging to be filled—and some think I should take charge. I don’t agree. Neither does the immortal known as the Griffin. Wealthy beyond reason, he has his own ideas about who should be running things. Still, when his granddaughter—and designated heir—is kidnapped, he calls on me to find her.
           
But someone—or some Thing—is blocking my special gift. So this time, I’m going to have to do my job the hard way. And quickly, or the Griffin will have to choose a new heir…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780441014606
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/26/2006
Series:	Nightside Series , #7
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	228,208
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.74(h) x 0.69(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author whose works include the Secret Histories Novels, the Novels of the Nightside, the Ghost Finders series,  Drinking Midnight Wine, Beyond the Blue Moon, Blue Moon Rising, The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher, and the Deathstalker series. He lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Simon R. Green’s Novels of the Nightside:
 
“A macabre and thoroughly entertaining world.” – Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files
 
“Fast paced and amusing, as well as packed with inventive details.”—The Denver Post
 
“Fast, fun, adventurous detection in a setting in which nearly anything’s possible.” – Booklist
 
“Sam Spade meets Sirius Black…inventively gruesome.” – Entertainment Weekly
 
“Superlative…An intricate and action-filled plot that seamlessly blends crime and the supernatural.” – Publishers Weekly
 
“Readers who prefer their gore with huge melodramatic flourishes and a side of slyly amusing repartee will find Joh Taylor at least the equal of Jim Butcher’s Chicago wizard PI Harry Dresden.” – Kirkus Reviews
 
“Cross The X-Files with The Twilight Zone, add a pinch of The Outer Limits and a dash of Eerie, Indiana, and one might have a glimmer of an idea what the Nightside is like.” – BookBrowser
 
“Totally enjoyable…take a vacation into the Nightside…just try not to get lost in it.” – Crimespree
 
“A captivating tale starring a heroic and endearing character whose thoughts when he is in danger are hilarious.” – Midwest Book Review
 
 “Taylor is the Sam Spade for the twenty-first century, willing to stare down an angel, a demon, or a god. [The] Nightside has the meanest of the mean streets, and John Taylor is right at home there.” – Fantasy Literature

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
The illegitimate love child of Raymond Chandler and H. P. Lovecraft...equal parts The Twilight Zone, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Dante's Divine Comedy...H. R. Giger meets Monty Python's Flying Circus. Simon R. Green's Nightside saga -- an audacious amalgam of mystery, fantasy and horror -- may be impossible to accurately describe, but these action-packed, breakneck-paced adventures featuring private investigator John Taylor may quite possibly be the most addictively readable series around.

In Hell to Pay, the seventh in Green's Nightside sequence (Something from the Nightside, Agents of Light and Darkness, et al.), Taylor -- a butt-kicking private eye who specializes in cases of "the weird and uncanny" -- is faced with his most potentially lucrative case yet. One of the Nightside's most wealthy residents, an immortal named Jeremiah Griffin, offers Taylor 10 million pounds to find his granddaughter Melissa, a soon-to-be 18-year-old who simply disappeared from the Griffin mansion. Taylor accepts the case but soon finds himself treading on dangerous ground; in a powerful family with more than their fair share of dirty little secrets, some would do anything to keep those secrets from surfacing…

The reasons behind the wild success of Green's Nightside novels aren't exactly hard to figure out; set in one of the coolest locales ever imagined (the subterranean city-within-a-city underneath London proper) and featuring a never-ending cast of over-the-top characters (Shotgun Suzie, Dead Boy, Razor Eddie, et al.), these novels are as hilarious as they are outrageous: unadulterated literary fun. Paul Goat Allen

Lady Damnation, Old Father Time, a world weary Count Dracula and the hard-drinking storybook character Bruin Bear are only a few of the beings that Green produces for his seventh novel set in the sinister and psychedelic world of Nightside. None, however, are more powerful than "the Griffin," an immortal who built his empire on the carcasses of foes, who has now summoned paranormal PI John Taylor to find his granddaughter. Taylor specializes in locating lost things; his Sight-which allows him to see into other dimensions-should be ideal for the task. But when an entity in the Griffin's mansion blocks his abilities, Taylor must investigate the old-fashioned way: questioning the Griffin's family members one by one. Taylor's q&a sessions are less than thrilling, and the numerous references to the family's fearsome reputation grow tiresome. Fortunately, Green throws in a number of left-field surprises, spicing things up with an attack of fanatical nuns (called the Salvation Army Sisterhood), a bloodthirsty gangster and a DNA-stealing Charnel Chimera. Indeed, the most entertaining aspect lies not in Taylor's investigation but in anticipating what Green's twisted imagination will conjure next. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly