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Renner & Quist at Their Very Best

Renner & Quist at Their Very Best

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Check Out Time Mark Rigney-smallSamhain Publishing has just ushered in Check-Out Time, their third Renner and Quist occult mystery from the very talented pen of author Mark Rigney.

Longtime readers of my articles will recall my reviews of Rigney’s earlier work, The Skates and Sleeping Bear, which introduced me to his oddball double act.

Renner is a persnickety Unitarian minister, while Quist is a boorish ex-linebacker. Together, this unlikely duo team to solve occult mysteries. This latest addition to the quirky and delightful series takes our heroes from their usual Michigan stomping grounds to downtown Columbus, Ohio.

It seems a long-demolished hotel is doing its best to return to existence. It currently inhabits its original location in another dimension, complete with guests and staff from past decades somehow co-existing. These guests include such celebrated faces from the past as Amelia Earhart, James Thurber, Charles Dickens, and Marilyn Monroe.

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Sgt. Janus Returns

Sgt. Janus Returns

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Sgt._Janus_ReturnssgtjanusJim Beard made quite a splash in the New Pulp community when he introduced an original occult detective character in Sgt. Janus, Spirit-Breaker in 2012. There has been a rich history of Holmesian occult detectives, but Beard appeared to have been the first to hit upon the brilliant concept of having each short story in the volume narrated by a different client of the detective. It was a simple, but highly effective means of giving eight different perspectives on the character.

Beard also took the unexpected decision to kill off his character at the end of the last story in the collection. Imagine if A Study in Scarlet had concluded with Holmes plunging to his death at the Reichenbach Falls and you have a clear notion of what a bold and unexpected move it was to make for an author who had already managed to raise the bar in a genre that many believed had been exhausted of fresh ideas.

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