Neil Gaiman's first solo novel Neverwhere begins with such a finely crafted scene of foreboding the average reader would find it impossible not to jump right into Chapter 1 from the prologue. The night before young businessman Richard Mayhew leaves his hometown in Scotland for a prosperous job at a Security Firm in London, a street psychic reads his fortune.
"You got a long way to go..." she tells him.
"London," Richard offers.
"Not just London... Not any London I know. It starts with doors."
"Doors?" Richard asks, perplexed.
"I'd watch out for doors, if I were you."
Three years later, a young woman appears, literally out of nowhere, on a London sidewalk -- injured, bleeding, and right in front of Richard. He valiantly stops to help her, and within twelve hours time, he finds that his entire world has vanished in smoke. His friends and associates forget about him. People on the street pass him by, as if he didn't exist. His bank cards won't work. His apartment is rented out to strangers. Richard Mayhew has fallen through the cracks of reality, and all he can think of is what the girl he rescued said to him when he asked her name.
"I'm Door," she said simply.
Richard finds himself drawn into a new London -- a London that exists entirely in underground kingdoms beneath the city, connected by an endless maze of sewer canals, rail lines, and abandoned subway stations. Here he must join forces with Door, the girl he rescued, a noble woman of great power in the London Below, to unravel the mystery of her family's slaughter and to try to make it back to the London he knows and the life he now finds growing less real by the minute.
The dark adventure moves through every shadowy corner of the London Underside as Richard, Door, and her entourage face demons, beasts, great trials, and are pursued by two ancient and supremely sadistic assassins who want Door dead before she discovers the final secret.
This novel has everything you would expect from Gaiman, the creator of the Sandman Graphic Novel series: darkness, in Goth physical surroundings, and the edge of the storytelling, pulse-pounding action, eye-popping surprises and a touch of the author's British wit. Gaiman uncorked his overflowing imagination for this work, creating a seductive, jaw-dropping, and incredibly gripping story that intrigued me more each chapter.
His characters, whether the epitome of good or the core of evil, are all very likable in their own way, his attention to detail is terrific, and his construction of the vast London Below is so shockingly real, so eerie, and so alluring at the same time, you'll feel as if you've left a part of yourself behind in it.
This novel satisfied me, a picky guy when it comes to novels, on every level. Very highly recommended, Neverwhere was is a New York Times bestseller. It is currently available in hardcover and now in paperback.
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John Paige
2.3.1999