Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman

Under the city of London is another London unseen by most people. A city for all those people who fall through the cracks, Populated by monsters, knights and girl’s in black velvet.

Richard Mayhew having helped a bleeding young girl, named Door, laying on a London pavement has just ruined his life and found himself to have ‘fallen through the cracks’. Having become invisible to all those living in the normal world, London above, he seeks out Door to try and restore his life to normality. Instead he finds himself prey to many of the terrifying creatures of London below and then dragged into Door’s quest to find the murderers of her family.

This book is a really great read. Gaiman has created a really eerie world made up from the everyday things in London; but with a twist. Using the tube Stations: real shepards at Shepard’s Bush (ones you don’t ever want to meet), an earl in Earl’s Court, saxophone players who live both in the Above and the Below, Old Bailey and Hammersmith are people, Knightsbridge is a bad neighbourhood… to name just a few things which have been seamlessly and extremely cleverly used to create this London below. Gaiman keeps the plot flowing fast and leaving you with many unexplained aspects but which aren’t vital to the plot. Although a predictable ending, one you don’t realise will be predictable until it’s there, you aren’t left feeling disappointed. Not only is it a suspense thriller, its also a beautifully written journey through fairy land, through insanity, and heaven and hell, through light and through darkness.