Rating: 
Summary: incredible world
Review: The Nightside occupies the same space but in another dimension as London does. To travel there one must know the correct portals. John Taylor lived in Nightside all his life until it was discovered that his mother was not human. She disappeared shortly thereafter and his father died a few months later. John had no protection from the Others who wanted him dead. He went to London and became a private eye, but a case brought him back to Nightside where he has resided ever since.His third eye allows him to locate anyone or anything in the city where creatures of myths live side by side with humans. He continues to be a paid private investigator. His latest case involves singer Rossignal the Nightingale who is playing at the Caliban's Cavern Club. Her melancholy songs has caused people to commit suicide. Her managers controls her which makes John want to free Rossignal from her gilded cage. Though this is Simon R, Green's incredible world, the Nightside is not a very green location as this unique place centers on good and evil's constant battle for supremacy. The hero fights on the side of the light as he tries to expel the darkness out of existence John seems in a never-ending story with only his curiosity about his mother occasionally diverting him from his goal. In his latest caper, John is in top gun form as the latest skirmish with the cretins of the dark will leave him dead if he fails to free the Nightingale for running is no longer an option. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: The First of Many
Review: This is the first book I've read by Green. This is the first of many. Nightside is a world for fringe dwellers, law-breakers, un-dead devils, and everything in the middle. I love the world Green has created. Anything can happen and does. Sleep tight, don't the creatures of Nightside bite. If you have an affinity for fantasy splashed with a few gallons of horror, read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, and yet...
Review: This is the first of the series that I've picked up, and though I liked it well enough, I have one serious problem with it:
I hate having to have read all the books previously in a series to get what's going on!
Now, I understand that in a series, there are a few things you can take for granted, and things that can be referred to, as well. However, as I depend on my library for most of my reading material, I can't always pick up the first 15 books in a series to decide whether or not I like them.
There's no real explanation of why the protagonist is a bad you-know-what. There are mentions of his mother, but the author assumes that you're just going to know what it's all about. Same with some of the bad guys. What's a jonah? Why is a jonah to be feared? Some of the questions I had I sort of figured out, but I finished the book with more questions than I had answers.
If this were just an installment of a serial story, fine, I could understand the gaps, but it's supposed to be a stand-alone book - part of a series, but definately a book in its own right.
If I come across other books in the series, I may indeed pick them up, but I was sufficiently annoyed by this book that I probably won't go out of my way to find the others.
Bottom line: If you're familiar with the series, it'll probably be a great read. If you aren't, it might not be that great.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Mind-Candy Fun and Gore
Review: This is the third 'Nightside' novel I've read, and they're exactly what you'd imagine: dark gritty PI mysteries set in 'the Nightside,' a part of London that is supernatural and just to the left of reality. It's always three in the morning in Nightside, and the Powers and Authorities of Nightside are often quite hideous, depraved, and full of divine (or demonic) power. Basically, think Charles De Lint on a really dark/grim/gruesome bent, or mayhap Anne Rice without all the lace and frilly stuff, or Laurel K. Hamilton without the mind-numbing repetetive sex.
Our "hero" in the tale is John Taylor (no, not the singer). He's a PI whose mother was something other than human (emphasis on the 'other'). He has a preternatural gift: he can just find things, by opening his third eye/inner sight. Alas, that also sets of a big ol' glow throughout Nightside that says "here I am!" and he has enemies aplenty, so quite often he has to rely on wits instead of his powers.
The plot in this third book is basically thus: A father hires John to figure out what is going on with his daughter, who is a rising-star singer in the Nightside who seems to be causing her fans to kill themselves (smiling while they do so). Are her agents to blame? Did she sell her soul for fame? Can you wash brains out of sling back high heels? All these questions and more are posed in this gritty gruesome bloodbathy fun urban dark fantasy mystery. Mind-candy wise, this is fulfilling, but it's not at all difficult reading or a confounding mystery - I had the villains figured out at first mention. Still, it's okay to pass some time.
'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: A DIVA TO DIE FOR
Review: This is the third in Simon Green's wonderfully dark fantasy series of the Nightside. The Nightside is a dirty, secret little underbelly of London where it is always 3AM, and where creatues both foul and mythical, mix amongst the dark and dangerous steets. This book begins not long after the events in "Agents of Light & Darkness" and while this book does make reference to those events, it's not necessary to have read that one first, although it does help.
John Taylor has just solved the murder of two friends who died during their own wedding several years earlier and in doing so, destroys the Prometheus power plant, knocking out power to over 12% of the Nightside. This causes much damage and chaos in the Nightside and John finds himself on the run from Walker, the representative of The Authorities, the true power in the city.
John Taylor is a private detective with a gift that allows him to find anything or anyone and is contacted by a wealthy banker to find his missing daughter who ran off to the Nightside to become a singer. Taylor finds the daughter whose taken the stage name of Rossignol working in a night club and under the control of The Cavendish's, a mysterious and wealthy couple. But there's a problem. Seems people have the odd habit of commiting suicide after hearing Rossignol sing and John must not only find out why, but also find a way to free her from the clutches of the Cavendish's who are backed up by the power of Count Entropy.
This book introduces us to yet another of John's sometime allies, the teenage boy know as "Dead Boy", who is dead himself, yet lives on eternally, holding his body together with stitches and duct tape. Dead Boy happens to be the foremost expert on death, and John enlists his aid in order to solve this latest mystery.
With each book, Simon Green begins to reveal just a tiny bit more about the mysterious John Taylor and his inhuman mother. Even when Taylor encounters a group of primal demons, older than creation, he sees fear in their eyes as they know WHAT he is...or will be someday.
DeadBoy was a welcome addition to John's list of friends which include Shotgun Suzie and Razor Eddie. Deadboy behaves much as any teenager does but with a deep sorrow underneath as he mournfully states that the longer he is dead, the less feeling he has for anything in his life/death.
Nighingale's Lament moved at a very brisk pace and Green gives readers little time to catch their breath as Taylor moves from one dangerous encounter to the next. But then that is one of the appeals of the Nightside books. With each one just over 200 pages, these are quick, exciting little diversions from much of the more epic and exhausting fantasies on the market today. One can almost feel that Green has so many ideas bubbling over with what he can do with this unique setting that he throws so much at readers at once.
A fantastic book in a series that gets better and better.
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