Hells Half Acre begins five years after the events in Penny Dreadful. Phineas Poe has been searching for Jude the entire time. He finds her in a San Francisco back alley scalping a man she just murdered. Poe recognizes the dead man and this brings on a series of flashbacks about Jude and his past times together, what they were doing, where they were, why they separated, and his extended search for her. These flashbacks are most prevalent during the first part of the book but also occur throughout.

Jude has hooked herself up with a powerful attorney, Miller, who seems to possess an unprecedented and uncanny amount of control over her. Jude brings Poe into the mix and along with a woman living with Miller, Molly, the four set out to make a movie. Not just any movie though, a snuff film with a twist, an existential snuff film.

Under Millers total control, supervision and direction all the participants will act out various scenes in which their identities, relationships and loyalties will all be called into question and severely tested. The entirety of the film is kept secret by Miller except for the ending, someone will die. The book culminates in the kidnapping of a gubernatorial candidate’s son.

The movie comes to a head in a botched convenience store robbery in which all of the participants are wearing masks of prominent pop culture icons. It’s also the single best scene in the book. It’s filled with sufficient peril and enough action to make one almost wish the book ended with it and didn't continue on.

Hells Half Acre is by far the weakest book in the trilogy. There are scenes that are supposed to be filled with terror or suspense or even dread, but they just don't inspire the intended feelings the way that they're supposed to. Here are a couple of examples:

-Early on there is an elevator scene that might be the biggest misstep of them all due to its inability to inspire any appropriate feelings of tension, claustrophobia or for that matter any feelings at all. Aside from just being flat it also suffers from comparisons to the climatic elevator scene at the end of the far superior
Penny Dreadful.

-There is a rape scene in the beginning of the book that SHOULD be fraught with certain levels of helplessness, peril and heartbreak just by the very nature of the act. Yet none of these emotions are present. This scene is also supposed to be a centerpiece of the novel, but as the heart of the story it doesn't hold up. Later on in the book there is a one sentence reference to the rape that contains far more dread then the actual event.

-There is a chase scene through public places with Poe following Miller before they have actually met. The scene climaxes with the two of them on a near empty subway train. Miller turns to Poe and looks him dead in the eye and says "Why are you following me"? It’s a genuinely scary and tense moment; it even ends a chapter so it serves as a great cliffhanger moment. Then the next chapter begins with Poe waxing philosophical and at great length about a sunset. Then after that aside Poe is now accompanying Miller to his home. The tension is gone as is all pretenses for caring what happens next due to the let down.

The extended highlight and perhaps biggest strength of the book is that we finally get to see some substantial character growth from Poe. By the last third of the book the reader barely recognizes him as the same guy who woke up in a bathtub of ice all those years ago. His primary concern is for the kidnapped child especially since he wasn't a part of the act. He becomes the de facto guardian angel for the child wanting only his safety even if it means forgoing his own. This puts Poe in a position that he's hardly been in before, someone to root for. This book is really about the growth of Poe and it’s nice to see him forming substance and become more real after the events of the past two books.

By far the weakest part of the book is the ending, especially the epilogue. The final act is limpid and uninspiring. Almost as if Baer said 'watch me juggle these 15 balls' and then wanted applause after catching 2 of them and dropping the rest. The epilogue is a dreadful reading experience that feels tacked on as if Baer felt the need to tie up all of his loose ends with one fail swoop. And what a trite swoop it is. For a sequence to be so dark and edgy at it core one has to wonder what Baer was thinking on this one.

Hells Half Acre has moments of excellence that are unfortunately out numbered by weaker moments, poor supporting character development and moments where you question the authors decision and motives. It should be read to see how the trilogy ends and to see how other themes are continually added to. Where as Kiss Me, Judas and Penny Dreadful deserve to be reread despite minor and only occasional missteps, the missteps in Hells Half Acre are egregious and it doesn't deserve to be reread except to cite references. What saves this book from a lower rating is the continuation of larger themes and allusions from the first two novels.

Miscellanea:

-The image shown above is that of the omnibus edition of the three Phineas Poe novels. The titles are available separately but this seems to be the most common edition these days.


-Brian Lindenmuth

Penny Dreadful begins with an alleged journal entry of Phineas Poe, our beleaguered protagonist from Kiss Me, Judas. The tone of the journal entry is reminiscent of the first novel. The entry is only a page and a half long and when the book proper begins Phineas isn’t the narrator.

Penny Dreadful takes place 13 months after the events in Kiss Me, Judas. Poe arriving back in Denver with no Jude, no money and no place to stay tracks down Eve, a character from Kiss Me, Judas to stay with her.

Each day is given its own header, so you always know when everything takes place. Over the course of the novel the events will be told in the first person point of view by everyone involved, probably 20 characters in all. This may seem a bit pedestrian to discuss but its worth mentioning because the entirety of the story has such a strikingly different tone then Kiss Me, Judas. It reads much crisper, cleaner and coherently but without losing any of the darkness. Each chapter title carries the name of the character for that section, so there aren’t any guessing games. Phineas' portions of the story however, are with out any such heading. Much as Phineas drifted into town he drifts in and out of the narrative.

The central premise of Penny Dreadful is Eve's participation in and Poe's gradual introduction to The Game of Tongues. A game played in the after hours where the goal is to amass points by collecting tongues. The reader is left to fend for himself to determine what the rules system and the hierarchy are. We are introduced to terms (tremble) actions (redeem) and titles (Glove, Breather) with little or no explanation. This isn’t a detriment though, it’s actually challenging to try and puzzle everything together. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when handled properly its far more rewarding to learn about a literary "world" from the inside out. Unfortunately though, The Game also provides one of the weaker elements of the story. As Phineas becomes further introduced to The Game later in the novel, Baer felt it was necessary for a character to lay the ENTIRE layout of The Game out for him and by extension, us. Whereas previously The Game existed in the shadows and carried a certain amount of menace, now after the unnecessary expository paragraphs though it just comes off as a D&D knockoff albeit with more deadly consequences. Think of the shadowy monster lurking in the darkened corner of your bedroom which becomes a coat draped over a chair when showered in light.

As anyone who has had any experience with gaming knows a lot of time goes into the creation of your character. Any gaming session of length forces a player to inhabit his character or the created world for extended periods of time. Everybody who plays The Game has their "real" lives and their "game" lives, their "real" person and their "game" person. In Penny Dreadful there is enough doubling of characters to make Nabokov proud as every character is ostensibly two characters. Sometimes the differences between the two are striking. Its interesting to note that some characters in the novel have created a peace between their two lives while others have a deeper discord in their lives as one personality wants to assert dominance over the other and still others are so immersed in The Game the one personality has all but taken control. This dichotomy proves to be a great source of character exploration and development.

Poe's entry into the game is initiated by Moon, the only other character from Kiss Me, Judas to make an appearance. Moon informs Poe that twelve police officers have gone missing in the past year. Moons superior is six months away from full retirement benefits and doesn’t want to investigate. It takes Poe some time to realize what we already know, that the missing cops and Moon are playing The Game. Thus facilitating Poe's entry into The Game. It's also interesting to note that Moons sections of the book are told in the third person perspective where as the majority of the rest of the book is told in first person. Much like his namesake Moons character orbits around the other characters and his narrative orbits around the others as well.

The trilogy of books is of course about Phineas Poe, but in Penny Dreadful Eve is given just as much if not more time then Poe. In fact, having read all three of the books her character is also the most fully realized, human and sympathetic. It’s telling that her character also has the hardest time reconciling the two opposing sides of her life. Eve is beautifully realized and shows not only real growth but depth also. There is a genuine fondness and caring for her by the final act. Her story arc alone is worth the price of admission especially since we know what happened to her in Kiss Me, Judas and how far she has come and the mystery of her future.

Now, on to that final act. I felt that the ending of Penny Dreadful was the strongest of the three. I've not been one in the past to give away ending and I'll not start here. I'll say a couple of things though. There is an elevator ride that might just be the best scene in the entire trilogy. No, strike that it IS the best scene in the trilogy. It’s only a couple of pages long but is fraught with suspense, terror, peril, emotion and Tension. It is an exquisite piece of writing.

One could be tempted to argue that the final act of the novel suffers from conventionality. I'll admit to thinking the same thing...at first. But I soon realized that the conventional nature of it was also its greatest attribute. For the first time in the series the story doesn't appear as a disjointed, hallucinogenic haze. It’s firmly grounded in a plot structure with clear intent even if we don't yet know the outcome. Like something suddenly coming into sharp focus the clarity of the "conventional" final act possesses the ability to take your breath away. Where as the ending of Kiss Me, Judas leaves one feeling dreamy, ethereal and unreal Penny Dreadful ends with a finality and suddenness that is both reassuring and devastating.

Miscellanea:

-The image shown above is that of the omnibus edition of the three Phineas Poe novels. The titles are available separately but this seems to be the most common edition these days. There will be future reviews posted of the other novels in the series as well.

-There’s a lot more to say about this novel that wouldn’t be appropriate in a review. I may work on an extended criticism of the trilogy after I finish reviewing the third book.


-Brian Lindenmuth

Upon reading the opening paragraph of Kiss Me, Judas a few things become clear. The quality of the writing, the hallucinatory tone and the break from genre conventions are all apparent. It not only sets the tone but grabs your attention also. I think it is worth quoting at length.

Kiss Me, Judas is the kind of story that David Lynch would have told had he written novels instead of directing movies. It is an unrelentingly dark and at times twisted tale that offers no respite for the weak of heart. Will Christopher Baer has a heart of darkness, but because of his striking prose we are better off for it.

During the opening two chapters of the book, which only encompasses 13 pages, a dizzying amount of set up action and necessary background information is given about Phineas Poe. After being released from a mental hospital looking like a cancer patient he goes to a hotel bar and meets a gorgeous woman in a red dress named Jude. They go back to his room and after having unprotected sex he wakes in a tub full of ice missing his kidney. When questioned by the cops we find out that not only did he used to be a cop, but that he was also Internal Affairs Division. So, it goes without saying that the police don't like him. After his wife was shot and killed in an accident(?) he had a nervous breakdown on the practice range and started shooting imaginary people. After taking an ounce of crystal meth he locked himself in a holding cell with a female prisoner and had her urinate on him. Upon waking up in a hospital he decides he wants to leave and yanks out his catheter. Before leaving the hospital he goes into the room of a burn victim on life support to take her drugs and antibiotics. The woman suddenly stirs thinking he is someone else. Since she can’t see, he plays along telling her that he has been feeding her cat. She tells him that she is afraid and asks him to pray for her. He takes her hand and recites the only prayer that he knows, the children's bedtime prayer. He holds her hand until she falls asleep then steals $50 from her purse. Afterwards he realizes he has fallen in love with Jude and he decides to track her down and get his kidney back.

Phineas Poe, possibly the most unreliable narrator the mystery genre has ever produced, leads us through a nightmarish landscape in which nothing that happens can be taken for granted. He is mentally unstable and oddly comfortable in his own skin, so when something happens that would set the alarm bells ringing in others; he takes it all in stride. He is a drug addict that floats along in a hallucinatory cloud that lends a bizarre bent to an already hellish existence.

Because of his inability at times to distinguish between what's real and not real he has a strange proclivity towards violence. He is quick to act out against somebody that he feels threatened by, stranger or not. He is also equally quick to engage in sadomasochistic sex, binding, gagging and cutting Jude when they have sex; fantasies about rape or forceful sex when looking at other women. While knowing that he is physically vulnerable, especially after his surgery, he is confident that he will never face any consequences for his actions. If he gets beat up there is always more drugs to turn to, if he gets arrested then he will just go into a mental hospital again. So, in Poe's world even a normal semblance of justice, which arguably is not only a trademark but also a pillar of hard-boiled/noir, has been corrupted by the narrators own lack of a coherent grasp on reality.

One of the first things that become readily apparent is the lack of quotation marks. Unlike the lyrical lilt of Bruen or the indicative dashes of Huston, Baer’s dialogue freely intermingles with the text. The thoughts and words of Poe and others are so intertwined that it seemed superfluous at first, but you quickly realize that it was a stylistic choice on Baers part. The way that the dialogue weaves its way through the story compliments the hallucinogenic tone of the story.

Jude embodies a few noir standards: the sexy woman at the bar; the female assassin/killer; the nursemaid; the hellcat in the bedroom and most importantly she’s not just a femme fatale but THE Femme Fatale. She proves throughout the story to be a tough bitch with one hell of a mean streak that also has developed a soft spot for Poe. However there is ample evidence to suggest that she only has strong feelings for those men who are weaker then her. Whether it’s Phineas in his current state, a young man with AIDS or a boy in need of an organ. She only ALLOWS herself to be taken or captured when she chooses. The only female noir standard that she doesn’t embody is the Hooker with the Heart of Gold. While embodying these genre standards she also lays them to waste. She’s not only her own woman, she’s also unlike any other female character that has come before her. In one sense she is Poe’s Virgil but it remains to be seen if she will become his Beatrice.

This is a non ponderous retelling or exploration of a bland urban legend. It quickly moves past that conceit into something else entirely, a guided journey through hells that we don’t normally visit. After his re-birth in the tub of ice it remains to be seen whether Phineas will ever earn redemption from or respite for the sins of his past but his journey is surely an interesting one.

Miscellanea:

-The image shown above is that of the omnibus edition of the three Phineas Poe novels. The titles are available separately but this seems to be the most common edition these days. There will be future reviews posted of the other novels in the series as well.

-There’s a lot more to say about this novel that wouldn’t be appropriate in a review. I may work on an extended criticism of the trilogy after I finish reading the third book.

-Purchasing this book was blind leap of faith for me. I had never heard of the three novels, the character or the author prior to buying the book. Other then the intriguing synopsis it was a blurb from George Pelecanos on the books cover that helped seal the deal, so I'll give him the last word. George Pelcanos, who is probably the most respected writer in crime fiction, a writer’s writer as it were, said the following about Kiss Me, Judas...