Green Door: A Sigils & Totems/Midnight Eye Novella by William Meikle (e-book review).

‘Green Door’ is one of the ‘Midnight Eye’ series about a Glaswegian private detective and also fits into William Meikle’s ‘Sigils & Totems’ mythos. The basic premise is that there are houses around the world where one can get in touch with your dead loved ones but you need both a Sigil, a special tattoo, and a totem, a memento of the late lamented. The houses are run by a concierge who controls access.

Private investigator Derek Adams, the Midnight Eye, is flush with cash and enjoying a drink in The Bon Accord, his favourite Glasgow pub, when one David Balfour approaches him with an offer of work. As the client is smartly dressed and offers loads of loot, Derek takes the job, even though the man paying is clearly using a false name. He has to track down a green door that used to be the entrance to a Sigil house in Glasgow. Derek’s joke about Shakin’ Stevens is lost on the younger man.

The investigation leads our hero back into old stories from Glasgow history, told him by a variety of ancient characters, usually in pubs. There’s a strong sense of location and touches of humour. Meikle deftly mixes the private eye and ghost story genres and even adds a bit of cosmic horror but the writing style is more Chandler than Lovecraft. This is apt as Derek drinks more beer and whisky in a day than one of Lovecraft’s reclusive scholars would have in an entire lifetime.

A fast, fun, entertaining read that will make you smile here and there. The plot rolls along and the characters are amusing. I liked the two old codgers, Andy and Jock, who get beer money by fleecing students at dominoes and card games. On the other hand, I’m not crazy about the notion of contacting the dead. I wouldn’t do it. Why would you? When people are gone, they’re gone and you have to get on with living.

However, as a fictional fantasy concept and the basis of a mythos, it’s a good idea. Meikle has written several books featuring both the ‘Midnight Eye’ and the ‘Sigils & Totems’, so if you like this, there are more. Despite fitting neatly into both series, ‘Green Door’ works perfectly well as a standalone and I enjoyed it. The author is about my age and grew up reading the same books and watching the same Hammer horror and classic gangster films on telly, so I guess we’re in tune culturally, yea even unto Shakin’ Stevens.

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Eamonn Murphy

June 2022

(52 page 828kB ebook. Price: £ 0.79 (UK), $ 0.99 (US). ASIN: ‎B07T37BLFH)

check out website: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Door-Midnight-Chapbook-Collection-ebook/dp/B07T37BLFH