This book had so much promise. I loved the concept – a wild What If scenario from the bygone age of cinema, directly at the intersection of supernatural and noir, a mystery with otherworldly undertones. I can’t even quite decide what failed in the execution here and I’m perfectly willing to put this down as one of those reader/writer incompatibility things, and yet…
Ok, so more words. Plot related words.
Imagine if Chandler (one of mysteries’ greats) and Karloff (one of Frankenstein fame) were pals. Besties, even. It’s possible, the two were contemporaries and their paths had plenty of opportunities to intertwine. Imagine if they set off to solve a crime. Imagine if that crime had supernatural flavor to it. So far so good, right? Now, set that in a WWII era LA, the place where fantasies come to be cinematized, and behold…it ought to be spectacular. Or at least a spectacle.
Why did it fall so flat? No idea. It wasn’t the writing itself, probably more to do with the plotting. It began nicely, but then it’s like it tried to do too many things at once or tried to cram several different stories into one.
Something strangely disjointed about the narrative, it was either too busy, too tangential, or too convoluted. For me, the reading experience was kind of like a bunch of words that worked individually but didn’t make up the sentences quite right. Very odd.
Unlike Frankenstein’s monster, made up of many separate aspects into a cohesive sum total, this novel didn’t manage the same trick.
Again, probably a very personal sort of disconnect, so take it as such.
Overall, pretty disappointing. And a much longer read that it ought to have been by page count alone. Thanks Netgalley.

This is the first time I have read anything by Kim Newman, but when the synopsis starts with Boris Karloff and Raymond Chandler teaming up to solve a crime, I could not have wanted to read a book more. The story starts with them being called to a dock where a car is being pulled out of the water. Chandler recognizes this as a part of his novel, The Big Sleep. It is also the car belonging to a long time friend. They are contemplating what happened when there is a knock on the truck of the car, from the inside. They open it to find a woman with many names. Lauren Ives, Steps, Stephen Swift, or Witcheye. This is one of those people who Raymond had ran into quite a bit in the past few years, and it’s a mystery how they both arrived to this point, and how she was able to stay alive in the trunk of a submerged car. Thus starts the unraveling of not only the mysteries of Hollywood but the horrors happening on movie sets and in the hills. This is what I found as the biggest surprise in this book. I expected Raymond Chandler, but I also got Boris Karloff. For as much as this is set up as a mystery, the horror elements are just as strong. Kim Newman finds a way to balance them more than what I expected, and the plot turns in some directions I never would have expected.

The language Newman uses is fun and filled with puns, wits, and sentences that take a second to figure out because they are so layered, deep into the lives of Chandler, Karloff, 30s era Hollywood, or the plot. The best comparison to the writing would be John Barth because every sentence is structured in ways that make you think about how clever it is and how it fits into the whole story. James Ellroy does this to an extent as well, but he is not as funny. There are times when I laughed at how smart the sentences and paragraphs are constructed, not only because they are funny but because it shows off some serious talent.

There are no reason why I should not love this book, but I struggled to get through it. There were some parts that seemed to last too long, dig too into the trenches of the story with the writing, and there are times when I felt like I was suffocating, that the story needed ease up and breathe a little, let us get a break. This just does not happen. Toward the end, there is a long chapter that is a story written by another character (which the rest of the book is first person, narrated by Chandler,) and this is the closest this book comes to relaxing. For as much as I wanted to love this book, I found myself just slogging through the pages and waiting for the end. It is a shame because the premise and the writing are both interesting and entertaining. I will most likely check out other Kim Newman books because I did like the ideas of Something More than Night much more than the execution.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Newman’s new fiction novel is a wonder to behold, experience and read. Mixing 1930s and 40’s Hollywood with Philip Chandler on a murder case in Hollywood with the help of the Boris Karloff. This is an excellent mish mash of fiction, facts thrown in to keep it real and sublime murder mystery that keeps the reader engaged and intrigued. Loved everything about this.

Over the past couple of years I have been reading the Stoker Wilder Mystery series which are excellent books about the pairing of Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker as they solve supernatural cases. Truly remarkable. Newman has done his own spin giving us a world of Philip Chandler that thrusts the reader into the Maltese Falcon territory with Sam Spade type character pairing with Boris Karloff, horror icon as they solve a murder mystery that needs to be solved.

Newman expertly knows his characters and to be able to sprinkle facts within the fiction and getting their personalities tightly sown in is nothing sort of fantastic. The plot is well woven and there are enough twists and turns to keeps the reader guessing. Love the many red herrings and it is very well paced.

Newman has brought us a winning combination and another fantastic book. I have been a fan since his Empire Magazine monthly column and love what he is with the world of fiction. This is a great read, a great find and a must read. FIVE STAR READ ALL THE WAY.

This is one of those books that you know you're going to love and you know it's going to be great but somehow you always postpone.
Till you read it and you wonder why you didn't do it before.
Kim Newman excels at mixing history and fiction, and this one of those book you cannot put down.
Chandler, Boris Karloff, classic Hollywood, plenty of references to old movies. Plus humour, some very creepy moments.
It was a lot of fun and loved this book.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I have to confess, that I did not read the back of this book before picking it up, that it was a new Kim Newman book was honestly good enough for me.

So it was a total thrill when I got to page location 185 (of the Kindle version ) and shouted out 'My god it's Boris Karloff!' to the annoyance of my husband who was doing something far more important at the time. Ahem.

I am a huge fan of Karloff so this chance to 'see' him in action as himself , William Pratt, in the context of a hard boiled, noir-ish thriller was a pure joy.

It is no exaggeration to say that I 'read' it in black and white, the tone jumps effortlessly from page to your mind creating this incredible vista of 1930's Hollywood, and, given Kim's knowledge and expertise in this area, he is a fantastic guide down those mean streets.

The locked room mystery is mixed with Schrodinger-esque case of the woman in the trunk of a car who is both alive and dead.

And yet, when you think about it, it is not really that bizarre because if you can rationalise that Billy Pratt and Raymond Chandler, acting as his Philip Marlowe alter ego, then a woman who is both dead, and alive, is not that much of a stretch.

Utilising an astonishing array of skills from the historical fiction perspective, the Hollywood movie world of the time and the burgeoning notion of film stars, Kim manages to create not only an engaging and intriguing mystery, in pairing up Pratt and Chandler -or Karloff and Marlowe- he brings forth interesting thoughts to this reader's minds about the difference between creators, and their creations, and where they overlap like a Venn diagram.

For if Karloff is the creation of the much less sexily named Pratt, then surely some part of him must be the person he was before adopting that name. And the same for Chandler whose life is inextricably entwined with his famed detective.

There are element of the supernatrual strewn throughout the novel, and it does take you down some very dark alleyways, to the point where you feel like you want to say, 'Hang on a minute, Kim, can you just slow down a tad please?'

But A) he doesn't listen because, after all, you are in his world now and

B) you can always put down the book. It is difficult, yes, but entirely possible.

Another triumph, to my mind, I absolutely loved this vintage tinged mashup of genres and cannot recommend it highly enough.

This book really piqued my interest. Newman made two actual people characters in his fictional story: Billy Pratt, aka Boris Karloff, and famed novelist Raymond Chandler. Yes, sir, I am in like Flynn.

The story got off to a great start. Newman brought these two characters to life within his pages, he created a traditional noir type setting and style. Having these two well-known characters as his protagonists added an instant connection to the story. Newman built the connection through connections to things that I already knew, and by giving me more facts about the people, time, and place. I was having a great time.

Then something happened. It really is very strange; life and the story took strange twists at the same time. My life got temporarily complicated and I just didn’t have the time to read that I normally would have. I lost my connection to the story and really had a hard time finding the time/desire to read. I started just reading the words.

Now, I will fully accept part of the fault in what went wrong between Something More Than Night and myself, at the same time, when reading a story, it has a responsibility. The story is supposed to take me away when life gets complicated. The story has a job to do. When I’m not reading the story, I should be thinking about the story; I should have wanted to know what Raymond and Billy were up to. Something More Than Night did not do its job to the best of its ability.

I find this unfortunate; I was looking forward to my first adventure with Kim Newman. Would I read another Kim Newman book again? I really don’t know. Yes, I should have been more present, but Newman didn’t make his book unputdownable for me.

*3 Stars

Rip roaring good fun that could have been edited a little more closely for unnecessary passages, but which delights and entertains nonetheless. If you’re worried this book can’t live up to its amazing premise, don’t fear — it does.

Something More Than Night is a novel that blends noir, classic film era drama, writers, and monsters both real and imagined in order to give us a what if tale about Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff tackling a case together and uncovering a heinous plot by a fake studio head who seeks to end mortality as we know it for a chosen few. It has all the makings of something that could be a genuinely interesting film with the right actors and ideally would've been a fun read as well. Unfortunately, I don't think it was a good fit for me and, after stopping and starting it a few times over the last few weeks, I'm going to have to accept defeat at 40℅.

I think it could be a nice read for fans of those classic noir novels and films, particularly for those who like a slow burn that takes its time setting the scene and laying out the nuances of characters through dialogue and inference. For me, it felt dry, the treatment of female characters was distinctly wooden, and I genuinely couldn't get the feel of any of the characters the way I wanted to as a fan of classic monster movies, noir, and historical fiction.

I really wanted to like this one but I just kept losing my grip on the story... The premise is fascinating and I really liked the homage to classic detective stories of the golden age. The incorporation of Boris Karloff was brilliant. The setting and lingo were spot on.

But somehow the story felt very uneven to me... It would be clicking along brilliantly and then all of a sudden would seem to find itself meandering in a way that threw the pace off and knocked me out of the zone... I diligently went back and tried again, multiple times, but eventually it got to be too much.

This one just wasn't for me... I'm not a die-hard Kim Newman fan - I don't have a lot of experience with his writings, but what I have had I really enjoyed, yet somehow this one didn't seem to have the seem instant attention-grabbing sense of others like English Ghost Story or Drearcliff Grange.

‘The streets were dark with something more than night.’ Raymond Chandler, Introduction to Trouble is My Business (1950)

My thanks to Titan Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Something More Than Night’ by Kim Newman in exchange for an honest review.

I found this a glorious genre spanning novel featuring two former British schoolboys now living in the USA pursuing their respective careers and on occasion becoming involved in mysteries in which crime and horror intertwine.

As a long time fan of crime fiction, including works by classic writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and horror in film and literature both the premise and execution of this novel was a delight. Definitely my kind of book.

Kim Newman is well known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of film, genre fiction and popular culture. In this novel he has embraced the tropes of hard-boiled detective fiction alongside those of pulp horror.

In Hollywood during the late 1930s Raymond ‘R.T.’ Chandler writes detective stories for pulp magazines. His long time friend, William ‘Billy’ Pratt, known to the world as Boris Karloff, plays monsters in the movies. Together, they undertake investigations into unusual goings-on in a town run by monsters both human and inhuman.

In the middle of the night Raymond receives a phone call from Billy with news that he had been asked by the police to identify the body of a man whose car had crashed off Malibu Pier; a death that closely resembles one in Marlow’s recently published ‘The Big Sleep’. Billy quips: ‘Could this be the work of one of your demented fans, R.T.?’ … so begins this fast paced crime/horror noir. I won’t say more about the plot in order to avoid spoilers.

The novel is narrated by Chandler in a rambling style that is almost stream-of-consciousness. It is quite a complex plot as R.T. is prone to asides and jumping about in time.

In his informative Afterword Newman details the real life connections between his imaginary comrades and provides details of the many books that he consulted to write this novel. He also writes:
“If I listed all the films and TV shows that have fed into this book, we’d be here for several months.”
So yes - there’s a lot of cultural references interwoven throughout the novel.

I felt that ‘Something More Than Night’ was terrific - a tour de force that honours both the hard-boiled detective fiction and the pulp horror of the period. The relationship between R.T. and Billy was a joy and I expect that this is a novel that I will be revisiting.

Although this is a standalone, Newman cites a few links to his other published works. Of course, there always exists the possibility that Newman will decide to write more adventures for R.T. and Billy. I certainly hope so as I feel that it’s rich territory for exploration.

Highly recommended.

This book is the biggest mash-up of literary and movie legacy I have ever seen, and at first I was here for it. It seemed like something that could almost be a weird B-movie: Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff Fight the Mysterious Monsters of Hollywood.

Sadly, the book loses its momentum over and over again. The pace stutters and lurches. Starts and stops. Goes full throttle and then slams on the brakes. I’d be totally awake and sucked in during some sections and then nod off during others. Books like this frustrate me a great deal, because I believe when this happens it’s often a sign of poor content editing, or of letting the author have too long of a leash without reminding them that not every reader is going to going to like being led off on this wild goose chase that at points leans almost into Scooby-Doo territory.

This book, for me, was at its best when it most resembled a whacked-out B-movie starring Boris Karloff and Raymond Chandler. I just wish it had been able to keep its momentum and energy throughout the rest of the sections of the book, too.

It pains me to say, but unfortunately, I did not finish this book. Such a promising premise with having Ray Chandler and Boris Karloff solving a murder mystery during Hollywood’s Golden Age. It was right up my alley.

But sadly, the story was overly dense and hard to follow. I found myself having to go back to reread several pages or paragraphs at a time in order to follow the story. Author Kim Newman is a great writer but, it feels like this story could’ve been streamlined a lot better. There are so many flashbacks that happen mid action that it was hard to figure out if we were in the present or the past. I also felt like there were so many references to characters and plots of Chandler’s novels, many I haven’t read, that I didn’t understand their relevance within the story. It’s hard for me to not finish a book, but truly this one was difficult to get through.

This book is a wonderful combination of hardboiled crime noir, pulp fiction, pop culture, and horror. The story moves along at a fast pace (although it drags a bit in the middle) and the characters are a lot of fun. I really enjoy old black-and-white B movies, so this book was right up my alley. If you enjoy that sort of thing, you'll like this!

SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT, by Kim Newman


Film director James Whale said about the special effects in the film Frankenstein:

“It's not science, it's ritual.”

In Kim Newman's novel, Something More Than Night, the narrator comments several times:

“It's alieeeve.”

The narrator is Raymond Chandler. Chandler is just one of the historical personages and fictional characters who are part of this story about monsters in Hollywood in the 1930s.

Besides Raymond Chandler (real), Boris Karloff (real) and Philip Marlowe (fictional) also appear.

Chandler is tired of writing for the pulps and is waiting for The Big Sleep (real), his best novel so far, to be published in book form.

Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff (who is between pictures at the moment) are caught up in real-life evil set in motion by the head of Pyramid Pictures (fictional).

Evil appears on both sides of the motion picture screen. The owner of Pyramid Pictures is attempting to duplicate in reality what the scientist Frankenstein has done in James Whale's (real) films—create eternal life.

In this story there is only a year 's difference in age between Chandler and Karloff, and they attended the same (real) public school in England.

During their investigation hardly anyone recognizes Chandler the writer, while Karloff—the Monster, the Mummy, the Man They Could Not Hang—is recognized immediately by almost everyone for his voice.

Chandler repeatedly describes them as two public school men who drink too much at night and wait for the monsters to come out.

Kim Newman specializes in mixing real and fictional characters in his stories and this leads to many breaks to find out if something that happens in his story is based on reality or is made up. Chandler and Karloff (who was born William Pratt) did attend school in London at the same time, but it's not clear that they were ever at the same school or if they knew each other. In the story, they were pals at school and this has created an unbreakable “old boys” bond between them.

As a fan of the Anno Dracula series and the Diogenes Club stories, I found Something More Than Night, a stand-alone novel, slow at times and I thought about bailing out more than once. For die hard Kim Newman fans only.

(Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital review copy.)

On paper, Something More Than Night looked like a book I was going to love, and it was certainly one I was very excited to read. It combines three things I adore, hardboiled crime, horror and film trivia, and comes from an author I’ve previously enjoyed, Kim Newman. Aside from penning the Anno Dracula series and the interesting experimental novel Life’s Lottery, Newman is an excellent film critic and penned a history of modern (well, 70s and 80s) horror cinema which I read multiple times as a teenager.
Something More Than Night had a really fun concept at its heart. Author Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) and actor Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) were school chums in early 20th century England and team up again in 1930s Los Angeles where they get involved in the investigation of a bizarre crime. I won’t give away much more than that, but it’s fair to say that things get very weird very quickly.
For the most part, it’s very entertaining. The story moves at a fair clip and Chandler makes for a great narrator. The writing is often inventive and playful, and the book exciting very funny at times. As you’d expect from a film critic, Newman packs the book with interesting movie lore that’s well woven into the story and doesn’t overwhelm it.
The one spanner in the works is the inclusion of two long chapters that divert the reader away from the entertaining duo of Chandler and Karloff and focus instead on a buddy of theirs who’s a private eye. These sections are written in a very hardboiled third person style which felt laboured. They don’t really add anything to the story and in fact distract from the main action.
At over 350 pages it’s a fairly long book for what is a slight, if entertaining, concept. I honestly think that without the two third person sections it would have been a better, more enjoyable book. As it is, it can feel like a bit of a chore at times, which is a shame, because when it’s good, it’s as much fun as it sounds.

This is my first read of the author Kim Newman, and this genre defying historical novel certainly made an impression. Newman throws in everything in this spoof blend of horror and mystery that pays homage to the 1930s Hollywood movies, the era of black and white films, hard boiled detectives, of monsters, and incorporating real and fictional characters. Prepare yourself for a bonkers plot, it is witty, fun, comic, and entertaining, featuring the alcoholic writer Raymond Chandler who takes on Philip Marlowe's persona, and his friend from schooldays, Billy Pratt aka Boris Karloff. The pair are called by the cops to the scene of a car pulled from the sea, with a headless corpse, and in the trunk is the impossible, a wet and alive woman of many names, including Leila Bostwick, Laurel Ives, and 'Witcheye'. In this non-linear narrative, of monsters recognisably human and the not so human, Chandler and Boris investigate, in a story with fantastical elements, littered with references and allusions that will be appreciated by fans of movies from this historical period. It took me some time to get into the style of the narrative, but once I did, I loved it, and its the perfect read for this time of the year. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This latest novel from film critic and horror-fiction aficionado Kim Newman reimagines Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff investigating weird goings-on in 1930s Hollywood.
When a headless corpse is found at the wheel of a Studebaker driven off the pier, the police call in Chandler and Karloff as they suspect the victim is their friend, Joh Devlin. Joh used to work as an investigator for the DA’s office, and solved the infamous Home House case ("it was page one news for weeks") but was fired because "because no one liked the solution" to the case.
Their investigations lead Chandler and Karloff back to Home House, a grand mansion and home a movie mogul who has "a science dungeon in the basement". It is here that they learn of a fiendish scheme, according Dr Vaudois in charge, "to ensure that the living do not die in the first place. To vaccinate death, to make man immune to dying." Joh had already discovered that "Rich people will go to great lengths to get out of things the rest of us put up with - dying, for instance."
Chandler and Karloff meet Laurel Ives - 'Witch-Eye', among many other aliases - a mysterious and beguiling woman who holds many secrets to the solving the case, which centres around the concept that "real monsters don't die". Or, as Raymond Chandler puts it: "Nobody learned the lesson of the [Frankenstein] story. Don't make Monsters. Just don't."
The novel is built on an appealing idea, and the story is well told (think Kenneth Anger's 'Hollywood Babylon' reimagined as hardboiled crime fiction), though it flags a little in places (particularly during a grand set-piece scene near the middle of the book), and the reader would need to be as knowledgeable about 1930s Hollywood, film history and horror fiction as the author to pick up on all the references and allusions.

I was intrigued by the back copy of this book and how it sucked me in with two of my favorite famous people between Boris Karloff and Raymond Chandler.

I was hooked from page one. It had that great hard broiled language that many people like myself fall in love with while reading a Crime Noir story.

The characters were rich and the plot went at breakneck speeds.

Highly recommend.

Something More Than Night is the latest book by an author I really like, Kim Newman. Newman's Anno Dracula books are some of my favorite vampire books. I was very much looking forward to reading this novel.

Raymond Chandler, writer and creator of Philip Marlowe, and Billy Pratt, better known by his acting alias Boris Karloff, have known each other since they were young and are working together to solve the mystery of who murdered their friend Joh Devlin. What follows is a tale that jumps a bit in time, has bizarre movie monsters, a mistaken Howard Hughes crash, mysterious women with strange powers, and a heaping dose of noir tropes.

The story is engaging and the characters are interesting. The pacing is a little off -there's some drag in the middle-and the ending feels a little out of focus. But there is a lot to love in the book. Chandler and Devlin are the narrators, with Chandler being the more engaging narrator. There's a supernatural element to the book that has b-movie charm and isn't belabored.

I have a feeling that chapter 30 will be something that people either love or hate. I was not a fan. But it didn't stop me enjoying the book. This is a fun read.

Something More Than Night was an old school, hilarious novel about two friends set out on a more than odd, inhuman adventure as actor, author, investigator and hero. In the 1930’s featuring monsters come to life with gregariously peculiar villains and antagonists, Newman has a very creative voice.

Although I am new to Newman’s work with this book being my first, I felt a little left out and confused in the beginning. But, that didn’t feel like a problem anymore the minute I got used to the style, and I enjoyed looking up references ( quite often ) to see little easter eggs and cool name callings.

I thought our main character was the sort of hero with monologues that were enjoyable and brought chemistry to the story, everything had its own little niche!

Our side character Billy was my favorite, he was more knight than hero, but I loved his involvement throughout the book, as well as how much charm he brought with his friendship to Chandler.

This is an extremely mind blowing novel that doesn’t hold back on quirks. It feels almost… insane to read, as it takes sharp turns and spins you on your head while reading. There’s so much fun to this book and I cant help but want to recommend it to everyone willing to try something new. A mystery, plus monsters and murder? It’s incredible.

I look forward to reading Newman’s other series as well!