Sometimes a book strikes you just by its entertainment value, sheer energy and enthusiasm, with a plot that takes the usual tropes and just has fun with them. The Lazarus Gate is one of those books.
This begins in 1890. Captain John Hardwick, rather like Dr. John Watson before him, returns to England after a lengthy stay in Burma (these days Myanmar.) Hardwick has been captured by rebels, tortured and force-fed opium during his time in captivity, and so returns to his home-country a broken and embittered man. Given an honorary discharge from the Army, he looks forward to rebuilding his life in London through peace, quiet and a respite from army discipline.
Instead Hardwick meets a mystery man who tells him of his father’s work and his family’s allegiance to the Apollonian Club, a gentleman’s establishment with a secret occupation. Many of the members there are still working for the British Empire, and Queen Victoria, but in an altogether more dangerous capacity – to defend the Empire against supernatural threats.
The plot quickly moves along as Hardwick is asked to look into a spate of bombings that have been occurring all over London. They seem to have involved people appearing out of thin air and then disappearing. Whilst much of the blame has been given to the Fenians, John’s investigations discover that there is a secret war going on between present-day (1890’s) London and an alternative world. Led by the mysterious Lazarus, it seems that the people of this alternative world are determined to enter ours.
To find the villain Lazarus, John has to enter the London underworld in London’s Isle of Dogs and obtain information from “The Artist”, a Fu Manchu-type Oriental villain who controls the trade of information and opium amongst the gangsters of London. This brings back unhappy memories for John, particularly when he is captured and tortured.
But the plot to invade London is uncovered, involving a bold, blitzkrieg-ian strike. It is up to Hardwick and his colleagues to stop them.
For anyone who likes Victorian melodrama but with a science-fictional touch, this fast-paced story is very entertaining. There’s not a lot of logic here, but lots of sprinting around at night through dingy warehouses and cobbled streets, cosy fires, leather armchairs and alcohol. The characters are pretty much what you would expect, with Hardwick being our rather dashing, if battered, hero. Alongside him are faithful companions and others who are not what they may seem. The bad guys are hissably evil, although Mark does well to portray that their intentions are not ones of evil, but of desperation.
It is rather grimmer and more explicit than Sherlock Holmes – the torture scenes are quite graphic, for example – but overall this was a winnable exploit into Victorian London with a touch of the HG Wells. I read it very quickly – a sign of its accessibility, perhaps – and look forward to the next book in the series.
The Lazarus Gate by Mark A. Latham
Published by Titan Books, October 2015
ISBN: 978-1783296804
400 pages
Review by Mark Yon
