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Overview

From ADAM BOLIVAR, author of The Lay of Old Hex, comes a baroque vision of flickering gaslight, occult conspiracies and decaying bloodlines. Ranging from the misty moorlands of Dark-Age England to the brick sidewalks of Prohibition-era Boston to the dreamlands of Nod, a series of intricately interconnected stories interlaced with cunningly contrived ballads follows the path of the legendary Ettinfell—the scion of Jack the Giant-Killer—as he pits himself against a diabolical menagerie of ghouls, giants, dream-vampires, dybbuks, fauns, boggarts, sorceresses, and Old Scratch himself.The Lowells talk only to Cabots and the Cabots talk only to god. The Drakes, meanwhile, talk only to the devil...JOHN DRAKE stalks the streets of 1920s Boston. He is a Brahmin by birthright, but shunned by others of his caste. Still, it is to him they must turn when caught in a supernatural snarl that needs untangling—or cutting—with the rune-graven sword passed from father to son since the days of Jack the Giant-Killer. Twelve Gothic tales unfold the uncanny saga of the Ettinfell, cursed by ancestral compact to defend the city of his birth, while longing for escape to the elfin Otherworld where he can be united with the mysterious balladress whose music haunts his dreams.“Boston has never been an unhaunted city, but with the occult investigations of John Drake, Adam Bolivar infuses the psychogeography of New England with the balladry of old weird Britain to darkly humorous, decadently erudite, and dependably ingenious effect.... If you thought driving downtown was tough, try the labyrinth of this captivating legendry. Only a trickster knows the true way out.” —SONYA TAAFFE, Author of Forget the Sleepless Shores“A satisfying collection of ancient horrors met and defeated by a ghost breaker in a well-realized setting in 1920s Boston. Very entertaining.” —DAVID DRAKE, Author of Old Nathan and The Serpent“Drawing on classic British folklore, colonial legend, and a mastery of the ballad, Bolivar’s tales of supernatural investigator John Drake are frightening, whimsical, adventurous, and above all else, thoroughly entertaining!” —PETER RAWLIK, Author of Reanimators,The Weird Company, and The Miskatonic University Spiritualism Club"With echoes of Wellman and Lovecraft, this collection of intertwined tales is a must read for lovers of the dark fantastical Weird" —MATTHEW M. BARTLETT, author of Gateways to Abomination“The occult detective was once a small genre to itself and Adam Bolivar has revived it with his old-time Boston setting and a brand new sleuth. Each story is like a puzzle box found in a curio store that appeared mysteriously overnight. Tinker with solving the puzzle and opening the box, and dark, thrilling forces are released...” —JOHN SHIRLEY, Author of Stormland and The Voice of the Burning House“An inventive and ambitious fusion of supernatural investigations, folk myths, nursery rhymes and fairy tales—with even a touch of the Biblical and the Mythosian. This is the line of Jack the Bold and Jack the Cursed, flickering between England and New England, flitting across the centuries, to achieve strange resolutions. Imaginative, enjoyable, and cunningly constructed.” —JOHN LINWOOD GRANT, Author of Where All is Night, and Starless“Atmospheric and eerie, the twelve gothic tales in The Ettinfell of Beacon Hill are diminutive period pieces: interlaced, twined by literary tradition, yet independently admirable, not only reminding readers of Adam Bolivar’s prowess as a poet, but his savvy as a storyteller.” —CLINT SMITH, Author of The Skeleton Melodies

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