Customer Reviews

The Tales of Inspector Legrasse

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The Tales of Inspector Legrasse by CJ Henderson is a newly released title by Mythos Books. As usual Mythos Books advertising is pitiful, as I just sort of stumbled across it. It is a very nice quality trade paperback. At Amazon it is $13.60, eligible for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of books, although with slower delivery. The cover has a handsome noir type painting of Legrasse with a superimposed femme fatale looking type. It is by Ben Fogletto, who was, I think, the artist for Mr. Henderson's occult detectives book. There is an even more noirish sketch of a world weary Legrasse on the frontispiece by Erica Henderson. Alas there is no other interior art by her, which would have been very welcome. Page count is a generous 217. In the back are advertisements for a number of books, including the forthcoming Black Sutra by DeBill (big yawn factor on the cover art) and Unholy Dimensions by Jeffrey Thomas (pretty cool looking cover). The book's contents consist of HPL's "The Call of Cthulhu", the classic which of course introduced us to John Raymond Legrasse, and 6 additional stories by Mr. Henderson, who brings Inspector Legrasse to life for us. All stories are listed as copyright 2005, which evinces some sloppiness on the part of Mythos Books. For example, "To Cast Out Fear" appeared in Eldritch Blue (was that released in 2003?) and "Patiently Waiting" was in The Occult Detectives of CJ Henderson from 2003. I do not know if the rest of these stories already saw print elsewhere somewhen. The introduction is by Bob Price, and is only mildly annoying.

Of course Mr. Henderson's mythos credentials are impressive and I have certainly read numerous stories of his. Although it is unwise to peg an author, it is safe to say that noir type supernatural detectives are a favored genre of the author, as evidenced by his Teddy London series, his occult detectives book and his Anton Zarnak stories. With such highly honed skills, Henderson's stories almost always deliver the goods. The premise of this book is to flesh out Inspector Legrasse as a character. This is fertile ground for a mythos author. After all, what did HPL provide to us beyond a name? He gave us a sketchy first adventure but HPL just wasn't an action writer or a character writer. He gives us a brief glimpse of the horror in the swamp. The situation was just begging for someone to come fill in the gaps. Thankfully, the talented CJ Henderson picked up the challenge. All of these stories (except, perhaps, the last, "Nothing to Fear but Dust" which benfits from knowing the series background) may be read independently. I am presuming, given the problematic copyright listing, that they were written over a number of years and appeared here and there before until compiled for this collection. Where was I.....? OK, there is an overall arc to the story collection leading up to Legrasse's ultimate confrontation with the Cthulhu cult. Characters introduced in one story will show up in subsequent ones. As Legrasse struggles to make sense of what happened in his first Cthulhoid encounter he becomes more and more detached from the normal course of human affairs. He is a somewhat tragic figure, setting himself to fight monstrous evil but completely out of the public view, unknown and disregarded by the people he is saving. It takes all of his reserves of character to maintain his equilibrium as he finds out more and more about Cthulhu, the Great Old Ones and mankind's place in the universe. But he perseveres, knowing in his heart that humanity is worth preserving, that people of good will must set themselves against this horror at whatever cost, even if it only delays the inevitable. Along the way he makes friends with Anton Zarnak and develops a small circle of devoted followers. All stories are highly crafted and enjoyable in a way different from HPL's magnificent "The Call of Cthulhu". HPL provides the cosmic sweep and Henderson the human dimension. Approach this book in the spirit of the noir types detective stories of the 20s and 30s and you will be very satisfied. Don't look too hard at how a few men can mow down a charging mob of Deep Ones with handguns, or at how sketchy the secondary characters are, or how untrained men, including the elderly, the out of condition and the morbidly obese, can navigate across the terrain of the Himalayas. Such quibbles will only spoil your enjoyment and are beside the point anyway.

So in summary, The Tales of Inspector Legrasse is a fine book, practically self recommending. It will offer many enjoyable hours of reading to any mythos fan. Based on this my next book will be The Occult Detective of CJ Henderson.

Interesting tales, some creative twists. Particularly "The Ebony Harlot." For my purposes, however, the collection falls short. Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, Hodgeson, were all able to kindle complex emotion in their readers. They carried the suspension of disbelief on a little longer, leaving you feel strangely different once the tale was told and the books pages folded closed. The more recent folks fail even to scare. That's my only real criticism of this book. It's well told (though lots of typos), there are some good possibilities -- I want to believe, but it just doesn't quite take me there. If you're wondering where Henderson falls in terms of philosophy of man versus mythos, I'd say he's closer to Robert E. Howard than Lovecraft or Smith.

On second thought, comparing Henderson unfavorably to others in that list may be a bit harsh. The book was well written and interesting, but not what I had hoped it would be.

Mythos Books knows what scares you. And it's . . . SMALL TYPE! Seriously, I think I broke something trying to read Henderson's collection. Inspector LeGrasse was a NOLA police detective invented by Lovecraft in 'Call Of Cthulhu', included here, and Henderson goes on to document, in a series of stories, the life and death of LeGrasse post 'Call Of Cthulhu', while still leaving a few black spots in LeGrasse's life for future stories. How about a straight crimes story involving LeGrasse that takes place pre-'Call Of Cthulhu'?

In many ways, even though these stories can be read individually as published, together they read as an episodic novel of LeGrasse's fight to save the world. Of course, LeGrasse doesn't do this alone, he travels with his posse, which usually includes Prof. William Channing Webb; his deputy, Joseph Galvez (both HPL inventions); Joel Carrinelle; and Henderson's occult investigator Dr. Anton Zarnak.

LeGrasse was only one character in the extremely busy, three storylined 'Call Of Cthulhu' triptych, which introduces the whole scenario that will power the whole Inspector LeGrasse series. 'Call Of Cthulhu' is primarily about LeGrasse's raid of a bloody cult ceremony, and is the story that originally introduced Cthulhu to the masses. Following this reprint of Lovecraft's 'Call Of Cthulhu' we start with Henderson's newly written adventures, the first being 'Patiently Waiting', which reunites the main cast as they return to reinvestigate the site of LeGrasse's raid. Finding a crop circle, they realize that the ceremony that was going to wake Cthulhu is being continued by the cult's survivors. Starting slowly, it builds to a spectacular climax whose end result has LeGrasse retiring from the police force.

'To Cast Out Fear' is a minor occult thriller involving racial prejudice, while 'So Free We Seem' and 'Locked Room' are both occult locked room mysteries.

More Derleth than Lovecraft, 'So Free We Seem' is an atmospherically creepy story that is clearly influenced by 'The Color Out of Space'. Involving the disappearance of Zarnak, 'Locked Room' has a nasty parasite filled zombie, an interdimensional fight with a Hound of Tindalos, and a last quarter that's wonderfully psychedelic. The title of this review is a quote from this story.

'Where Shadow Falls' mixes gangsters and Cthulhu, and takes place years after 'Locked Room', the years have not been kind to LeGrasse and shows LeGrasse having falling into disrepair. Teaming up with his old enemy, NOLA crime lord Achillie Buttacavala, in order to find out what had happened to Buttacavala's son, and working to thwart a full scale invasion, 'Where Shadow Falls' has enough story for a full length novel. Henderson keeps it short though, and uses 'Where Shadow Falls' to set up the follow-up, and last story in the collection, 'Nothing To Fear But Dust'.

'Nothing To Fear But Dust', which was the great cover's inspiration by Ben Fogletto, and combines horror and adventure in the grand pulp tradition, with all of the series regulars banding together for their final battle against their enemies, as they travel into desert and ice to the Tsang Plateau. Despite an unlikely romance between LeGrasse and Angela Buttacavala, Achillie having since died, and a weak ending, Henderson still neatly wraps up this collection with this tale.

The always reliable Henderson draws on many stylistic resources for his stories of LeGrasse, and except for the purists for whom nothing would please, does an great job in writing modern weird detective/adventure pulp stories. While mostly out of fashion in pop fiction, this collection, which is edited and introduced by Robert M. Price, is well worth the time and money of fans of Lovecraftinalia, and weird detective/crime fiction.

A shorter version of this review originally appeared in 2007 in "Cemetery Dance" #57, and was originally edited by Bob. Thanx Bob.

This is an interesting and entertaining collection of Lovecraftian tales. Unfortunately, the editing seems to have been done quite poorly in certain parts. Typographical errors abound, misspellings, wrong words, etc. It's really too bad. On the plus side, the cover art is brilliant. Altogether very worthwhile, but I would suggest that the book be re-edited for future printings.