I dare you to read the first two pages and not want to finish the rest of the book.

Part Victorian murder mystery, part fantastical alternate history with a liberal dash of lexigraphical acrobatics, The Somnambulist combines a labyrinthine plot with haunting characters and an unreliable narrator which coalesces into an unexpected crescendo no one could anticipate.

The Somnambulist is a bald, mute giant of man who when pierced with swords does not bleed. His almost constant companion is Edward Moon, often referred to as the conjurer, with whom he conducts a magical act and solves the most mysterious of mysteries. When drawn into the enigmatic and horrifying deaths of two lechers, seemingly unconnected except for the implausible nature of their deaths, these crimes, however, and their monstrous solution are just the first strands in unraveling the gordian knot that is threatening the city of London.

At times like taking a midnight stroll through densely fogged streets and hearing ominous footsteps behind you, or standing slack-jawed at a bawdy freak show, or laughing raucously at a local pub Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist is reminiscent of authors of such note as Mary Shelley, Neil Gaiman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe and Michael Chabon.

This books is essential for all you Word Nerds out there as I learned 9 new words during the course of the book! [coruscating, sybaritism, postprandial, risible, penury, cognoscenti, minatory, ratiocination, eldritch] Their inclusion is not abrupt as in a Mad Lib, but fit seamlessly into the otherworldly elegance of the prose.

A solid 4 and a half, with its only caveat being that the end leaves you thinking "What the Deuce?!"