Monday, July 29, 2013

Cover art - "Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs" by Daniel Abraham

In the last couple of years I gathered a series of books I read and enjoyed a lot but for which I never managed to sit down and write a review. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, but most often I am just happy I was able to discover their magic. Of course, it doesn’t compensate my wish to have actually showcased these titles with a proper review on the blog, but in a way it is better than nothing. One author who became quickly one of my favorites and ended up in the said list is Daniel Abraham. I had review copies of the first three novels of the “Long Price Quartet” at the time of their release but I didn’t read them then. To make the matter a little bit worse, all the four novels in Daniel Abraham’s series are among the books I read and enjoyed in the fullest in the recent years and never got around to write the review I had in mind. It is a matter to be considered for the future. Yet again much later than the publication day I finished last week-end “The Dragon’s Path”, the excellent first novel in Daniel Abraham’s “The Dagger and the Coin” series, but at least in this case I am already writing my review. It is a start and I am hoping to catch up with the other two novels of the series really soon. I also hope to catch up with the stories of two other characters born from Daniel Abraham’s pen, Balfour and Meriwether, until the new novella featuring their adventures comes up from Subterranean Press. “Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs” is scheduled to be released on October this year and is the third adventure of this pair of special agents after “The Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance” and “The Vampire of Kabul”, both available in digital format in the volume “Balfour and Meriwether in Two Adventures” published by SnackReads. If the first two are short stories and the volume containing them is about 40 pages long, “Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs” is a novella length adventure of about 90 pages. The cover artwork of the volume is made by David Palumbo and while I am not a big fan of characters on covers I find it difficult to argue with how the things turned out here. I could say that I can’t wait to get a copy of this novella, but although it is true I also have some things to put in order with Daniel Abraham’s works that I am certain the time until “Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of Harrowmoor Dogs” is released will seem short.

When a private envoy of the queen and member of Lord Carmichael's discreet service goes missing, Balfour and Meriwether are asked to look into the affair.  They will find a labyrinth of dreams, horrors risen from hell, prophecy, sexual perversion, and an abandoned farmhouse on the moors outside Harrowmoor Sanitarium.  The earth itself will bare its secrets and the Empire itself will tremble in the face of the hidden dangers they discover, but the greatest peril is the one they have brought with them.

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