31 Days of Halloween - Day 31 - Book

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. Avon Books. 1993.

For the final book in my Halloween Countdown I chose something I've been meaning to get to for some time and it turned out to be a perfect sendoff.

Told from the first person of Snuff,  Jack the Ripper's dog, A Night in the Lonesome October tells the story of "the Game" which occurs every few decades when the full moon falls of Halloween, and the barriers between our world and the dimension where H.P. Lovecraft's Old Ones are imprisoned. The Game involves openers and closers; those wanting to let the Old Ones into our world and those who want to keep them out. There is a large cast of literary and cinematic figures and types involved in the game in some fashion such as Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, the Wolfman, a witch, Dr. Frankenstein, a mad monk, occultists, a vicar, a druid, and a pair of occultists, but they and their actions and intrigues are revealed to us through the true stars of this book, their animal companions, a cat, a bat, a snake an albino raven, an owl, a rat, and a large unnatural dog. The animals slyly trade information, aid one another, and do a lot of detective work as the days (each chapter is one day in October) count down to the big event. 

This book was a lot of fun and completely captured me by the second paragraph. The animal characters are delightful and the tale is full of really compelling intrigue as the players try to figure out who is on whose side, who is trying to bump off the players, if there are any unknown players and where the climactic showdown will take place. To top it all off, each chapter features an illustration by the great Gahan Wilson.

This is a truly fun book for Halloween which also happens to be, in itself, a countdown to Halloween.