A series of hard boiled stories about New York detective, set in The Roaring '20s. It would be another collection of ordinary noir stories, if not for a peculiar tendency of the cases to be linked with various Eldritch Abominations of the H. P. Lovecraft variety. As for the protagonist... he's a nephew of Dr. Herbert West and has a weird schtick of following the clues to absolutely logical and absolutely wrong conclusions.
The series are replete with Shout Outs, mostly to Lovecraft's works, but not only. The hero himself is a First-Person Smartass who often snarks about the situation he ended up in.
The Case of Uncle Herbert
The first story. Mike sets out to Boston, hired by his uncle's erstwhile accomplice, the narrator of the original Herbert West–Reanimator.
Tropes:
- Expy: In Herbert West–Reanimator he was unnamed; in Re-Animator he was Dan Cain; here, he's Dr. August Willmore Derby, to go with Lovecraftian naming convention (both as a Shout-Out to author August W. Derleth and character Edward Pickman Derby from The Thing on the Doorstep).
- Noodle Incident: The "stunty Guido who nailed my tie to the desk with a switchblade", mentioned by Mike in a soliloquy.
- Not Quite Dead: Herbert West, as Mike finds out. Nothing that can't be fixed with enough dynamite, though.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Clapham-Lee and Herbert West are Type C. Clapham's "upgraded" zombies are pretty much Type P.
- Playing with Syringes: What Clapham-Lee did to Herbert West. Not only he ripped poor Uncle Herb apart in the finale of Herbert West–Reanimator — he turned him into Professor Guinea Pig, pumping West full of his own serum and stitching him back together... Without arms and legs, that is.
- Purple Prose: The bits written from the POV of Dr. Derby (in a sort of parody/pastiche of Lovecraft's antiquated writing style).
- Shout-Out: LOTS of shout-outs:
- Pickman's Model — Mike breaks into the house of an artist named Peters and stumbles upon a pack of ghouls in the tunnels beneath it (after he finds Clapham-Lee's hideout). Also, Mrs Peters is mentioned - it's Victoria Glasser from the Call of Cthulhu CCG.
- Cool Air — one of Mike's "old cases", as he tells it to Dr Derby.
- Resident Evil — Clapham-Lee plans to use his zombies as bio-weapons and the ship he hijacks to conquer Germany is named "Veronica".
- Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes — Mike works at Whitehaven & Baker agency (named after the residences of Poirot and Holmes: Whitehaven Manor and 221b Baker Street) and pokes fun at both detectives.
Garlands Of May
Two years later, Mike is hired to find out what's going on with the client's daughter, studying at a college in Maine. Suffice to say... Bad things happen.
Tropes:
- Black Cloak: averted. The Lambda Sigma Nu girls wear red cloaks, but then they just drop them and dance around a huge fire stark naked.
- Body Horror: Lillian Thorne
- Chekhov's Gun: The Witch Stone.
- Compelling Voice: Abigail Thorne and her mother, Marilyn.
- Creepy Child: The girl in the woods.
- Creepy Twins: Abigail and Lillian Thorne.
- Evil Redhead: The Thorne sisters, and their mother too.
- Eldritch Abomination: A Dark Young. Mike blows it up along with a moonshine still.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Richard Bachman, er, Blackman. Described to look like Stephen King, with "a face a size too small for his huge noggin, massive chin and forehead contrasting with thin lips and small, piercing eyes".
- Secret Circle of Secrets: The Lambda Sigma Nu sorority. The acronym stands for "Lesbian Shub Niggurath". Go figure.
- Shout-Out: Again a couple:
- The Horror At Red Hook — Mike mentions it as one of the cases he couldn't pick up due to being overworked.
- Call of Cthulhu CCG — inaccurate, the card is named "The May Garland" (singular), while the story title is plural.
- The Salem Horror and The Shambler from the Stars — Marilyn Thorne's maiden name is "Prinn".
- The Omen — father of the Thorne sisters is named Damien. He's not the worst of the family, though.
- Richard Blackman. The story takes place in Maine, for God's sake!
