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| Nightingale's Lament (Nightside, Book 3) | 
| Author: Simon R. Green
Publisher: Ace
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $2.95
You Save: $4.04 (58%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 63404
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0441011632
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780441011636
ASIN: 0441011632
Publication Date: April 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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Product Description
In the Nightside, the hidden heart of London where it's always 3 AM, Detective John Taylor must find an elusive singer known as The Nightingale. Her silken voice has inexplicably lured many a fan to suicide--and Taylor is determined to stop her, before the whole neighborhood falls under her trance. But to catch the swift-winged Nightingale, he'll have to hear the deadly music--and survive.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Song of death August 7, 2008
"My name is John Taylor. And if you've come looking for me, either you 're in trouble, or you 're about to be."
That striking little line sums up the general life of Simon R Green'a grizzled anti-hero John Taylor, an unconventional private eye in the "sick, secret magical heart of London." And "Nightingale's Lament," the third book set in the gloriously gruesome Nightside, has a solid little mystery at its center, filled with grotesque characters and weird supernatural happenings. Something is definitely rotten in the state of the Nightside.
While arguing with his secretary about his personal life, John is approached by Parisian banker Charles Chabron, who asks him to help him with his daughter, a nightclub singer called Rossignol. Not only has the girl withdrawn from everyone except her management, but her sad songs are driving people to suicide. And when John starts investigating Rossignol, he finds that she is always in a depressed, drugged stupor and her managers the Cavendishes keep her isolated.
After one of her fans shoots off his own head during a concert, John joins forces with the zombieesque Dead Boy, and starts prowling around for the last singer that the Cavendishes took under their wings. Turns out that Sylvia Sin has become something inhuman and horrifically desirable -- and the Cavendishes have done something even more terrible to Rossignol. Rescuing the trapped nightingale will stretch John's abilities to the limit... and he may not be able to truly save her.
Transvestite superheroes, ghostly lovebirds, temporal triplets, the Victorian Adventurer, Hell's Neanderthals, teenybopper-goth groupies, sleepwalking thugs, and a twerpy probability-shifting guy called Count Entropy. Even if Simon R. Green had no writing ability whatsoever, the world he conjures in the Nightside series would be worth the read -- dripping with darkness, eccentricity and utterly twisted fantasy-noir humor. And boy, is it fun.
And fortunately for us all, he has quite a bit of writing ability -- he can conjure up loads of atmosphere in all corners of the Nightside, from the Necropolis to a sweaty, flower-stinky magical bordello. And Green can induce some shivers even in un-scary scenes, such as when John and Dead Boy are attacked by a vast horde of transvestite divas (" Their painted faces were suddenly strange, twisted, shaped by new and deadly emotions. It was like being suddenly surrounded by a pack of wolves").
He also has a knack for descriptions ("the neon signs were flickering on again, like road signs in Hell"), and a quirky sense of humor to remind us that the Nightside is not the kind of place you go for lighthearted fun ("cars left unattended on Nightside streets tend to be suddenly stolen, or eaten, or even evolve into something else entirely while your back's turned").
John Taylor is your average noir anti-hero -- grizzled, cynical, and always with a smart remark at the ready. His big difference from a Raymond Chandler detective is that his mother was apparently some kind of uber-demon. It's a little annoying that he handles everything by saying "I'm John Taylor" and expecting instant quivers, though. But he works well with the pragmatic, ghoulish, booze-swigging Dead Boy, and his sympathy for the tragic Rossignol -- whose drugged stupor is quite creepy -- is immensely touching.
Stardom always has a price, and that price appears to be much, much higher in the Nightside. Simon R. Green's "Nightingale's Lament" is a solid little noir mystery tinged with magic, and more than its fair share of the grotesque.
 More Dead Boy please! July 2, 2008
This is the third book in the Nightside series by Simon Green. It was an excellent and very creative story.
John Taylor is contacted by Charles Chabron to find out the whereabouts of his daughter Rossingol. Rossingol came to the Nightside to hit it big as a singer. She has signed up with some new managers, the Cavendishes, and is selling out all of her shows. Her success is coming with a strange side effect; after hearing her sing many of her fans commit suicide. As Taylor struggles to figure out what has been done to Rossingol, he finds out her managers are more dangerous than he ever imagined.
This series just seems to be getting better and better. The cast of characters is creative, amusing, and very colorful. I loved Julien Advent and Dead Boy. Dead Boy in particular added a lot of wry humor and fun to the book. The Nightside continues to be a surprising and darkly amusing environment. I don't know how Green thinks up all of this stuff but the surprises and creative environment flies at you from all sides. The writing is action packed, descriptive, and moves along at a fast clip. The story is, once again, fairly self-contained.
The overlying doom of what John Taylor is and who his mother is still hovers over the overall story arc. So far I have just absolutely loved this series. I want to go out right away and buy all of the books!
Urban fantasy at its best March 28, 2008
This is the third book in the Nightside series and all I can say is the series just keeps getting better. I picked up the first one in the series on a whim and loved it so much I bought the next four through Amazon. The Nightingale's Lament is fabulous. The character development is great. This book as with the other is funny, poignant and horrifying at turns. Though many of the characters our completely outlandish they have such an element of truth and realness at their cores that they are believable. I would highly recommend this series to those that like their urban fantasy with a touch of hope and heart. I would recommend this series to fans of Charles De Lint.
Sing a song to die for November 3, 2007
The world created by Simon Green is unique and intriguing. The Nightengale is a great story about a "lost" singer. With demented owners and death all over the place it is up to one man to figure out and stop what is happening.
John Taylor is a private detective with a gift at finding things. Including trouble. He has a "reputation" in the Nightside, good or bad is another story in itself.
I highly recommend this series of books to anyone with an open mind.
Super Reader August 26, 2007
John Taylor might have a thing for lost daughters it seems, as he takes on another case involving such a woman. This time she is not lost in the physical sense, but mental, being a famous singer.
A fun tidbit in that the Nightside has its own transvestite superheroine.
We see here that the Nightside is a mixture of superscience and the supernatural, much like Grimjack's Cynosure, for another example, when John is called in at the start to look at the problems a power plant run by an old friend is having. What is at the heart of that is a plot used many a time in comics.
We also discover the newspaper is run by the World's Greatest Victorian Adventurer hero, who was sent through time by his old archenemies, the fate of whom no-one knows.
John, teaming up with Dead Boy, must work out what is going on.
These Nightside books are very entertaining.
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