Simon Kewin is a pseudonym used by an infinite number of monkeys who operate from a secret location deep in the English countryside. Every now and then they produce a manuscript that reads as a complete novel with a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes even in that order.
The Simon Kewin persona devised by the monkeys was born on the misty Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea, at around the time The Beatles were twisting and shouting. He moved to the UK as a teenager, where he still resides. He is the author of over a hundred published short stories and poems, as well as a growing number of novels. In addition to fiction, he also writes computer software. The key thing, he finds, is not to get the two mixed up.
He has a first class honours degree in English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing (distinction). He's married and has two daughters.
A story of
Her Majesty's Office of the Witchfinder General
Protecting the public from the unnatural since 1645
When Danesh Shahzan gets called to a crime scene, it's usually because the police suspect not just foul play but unnatural forces at play.
Danesh is an Acolyte in Her Majesty's Office of the Witchfinder General, a shadowy arm of the British government fighting supernatural threats to the realm. This time, he's been called in by Detective Inspector Nikola Zubrasky to investigate a murder in Cardiff. The victim had been placed inside a runic circle and their eyes carefully removed from their head. Danesh soon confirms that magical forces are at work. Concerned that there may be more victims to come, he and DI Zubrasky establish a wary collaboration as they each pursue the investigation within the constraints of their respective organisations. Soon Danesh learns that there may be much wider implications to what is taking place and that somehow he has an unexpected connection. He also realises something about himself that he can never admit to the people with whom he works…
Think Dirk Gently meets Good Omens!
The Eye Collectors follows the investigations of Acolyte Danesh Shahzan. As such, establishing the basic premise and its context is essential and in less-skilled hands, such challenges can slow down the narrative. That is not so here, in fact, quite the reverse. To illustrate my point, I read the story within twenty-four hours, I hardly put the book down. The pace, the sustained tension, is a strength of the story and it's down to the minor details.
The protagonist's relative ignorance allows the author to expose the reader to the dangers of magic. Minor details, a scent, an innocuous looking object, a light source, warn us of the danger but we don't know what form it will take and that's part of the fun. Magic is like gelignite with the fuse lit!
When it comes to characterisation, it's the minor details that make them stand out. This is particularly true for the minor characters. The aptly titled Lady Coldwater is ruthlessly chilling; we meet her only a couple of times and yet her impact is enormous on the story. Her frightening persona turns her into a variety of possibilities to the plot, keeping the reader guessing as to what her role will be. This is true for most of the characters - more examples could lead to spoilers so I'll avoid doing that. Danesh is a brilliant protagonist. His background, his cultural history, his family, his secrets, make him a rich and complex hero. You can't help but like the guy and root for him to succeed, to bemoan the setbacks and the prejudices he faces.
All this leads me to one conclusion and it gave the story such an inventive edge, the similarities to Raymond Chandler. Perhaps not as dark and "hard-boiled" as Philip Marlowe's investigations, first person narrative, the diversity of characters with their grey morality, the attention to minute detail and the emphasis on the senses, all gave the story a distinct "noir" flavour that made this such an intriguing detective thriller. Absolutely recommended!
The Eye Collectors follows the investigations of Acolyte Danesh Shahzan. As such, establishing the basic premise and its context is essential and in less-skilled hands, such challenges can slow down the narrative. That is not so here, in fact, quite the reverse. To illustrate my point, I read the story within twenty-four hours, I hardly put the book down. The pace, the sustained tension, is a strength of the story and it's down to the minor details.
The protagonist's relative ignorance allows the author to expose the reader to the dangers of magic. Minor details, a scent, an innocuous looking object, a light source, warn us of the danger but we don't know what form it will take and that's part of the fun. Magic is like gelignite with the fuse lit!
When it comes to characterisation, it's the minor details that make them stand out. This is particularly true for the minor characters. The aptly titled Lady Coldwater is ruthlessly chilling; we meet her only a couple of times and yet her impact is enormous on the story. Her frightening persona turns her into a variety of possibilities to the plot, keeping the reader guessing as to what her role will be. This is true for most of the characters - more examples could lead to spoilers so I'll avoid doing that. Danesh is a brilliant protagonist. His background, his cultural history, his family, his secrets, make him a rich and complex hero. You can't help but like the guy and root for him to succeed, to bemoan the setbacks and the prejudices he faces.
All this leads me to one conclusion and it gave the story such an inventive edge, the similarities to Raymond Chandler. Perhaps not as dark and "hard-boiled" as Philip Marlowe's investigations, first person narrative, the diversity of characters with their grey morality, the attention to minute detail and the emphasis on the senses, all gave the story a distinct "noir" flavour that made this such an intriguing detective thriller. Absolutely recommended! – Simon Kewin
"I really enjoyed the story and the fact that it's not all black and white – it felt a bit more realistic than some stories that have very clearly defined good and bad characters. I'll be keeping an eye out for future books in the Office of the Witchfinder General series – if you enjoyed Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series or the Dresden Files, then you'll enjoy this one. Definitely one to look out for!"
– Matthew Johns, British Fantasy Society"Very enjoyable, liked the premise and the pull between what is right and what is allowed by an antiquated organisation. Looking forward to further episodes."
– Reader review"I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is refreshing in its treatment of its fantasy tropes and that takes some doing these days. It has touches of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London books, some of [Douglas] Adams' Dirk Gently stories and the grey morality, the first person narrative and dark settings of Raymond Chandler. I highly recommend it."
– Reader reviewThe killer had extracted the victim's eyes. That got my attention. Also, the pentagram daubed around the body in what I doubted was red paint.
I'd been summoned to the crime scene without much expectation of finding anything significant. You'd be surprised how often it happens: a murder with hints of ritual, a few bizarre or inexplicable circumstances, and some investigating officer in the know will murmur, "What do you think, one for the witchfinders?" And another investigating officer in the know will purse their lips, pause, then nod, only too happy to have a potentially troublesome case handed over. And then I'll discover the victim's jealous spouse buried that knife in the victim's neck because they'd been unfaithful, or abusive, or just plain irritating, and that's all there is to it. Nothing arcane, no forbidden arts perverting the natural order, nothing.
That's basically how it always goes. Except, occasionally, it doesn't.
I crouched beside the body, feeling ridiculous in my white crime-scene onesie. Not clothing that would normally be much use or protection to me. Still, I was careful not to touch anything, in case the investigation did turn out to be a simple matter of hair follicles and fingerprints and mere criminal laws.
The complete lack of blood spatter intrigued me. Murder is a messy business, but there was no blood anywhere apart from in that spell-circle. Whoever carried out this mutilation knew what they were doing. At the very least it had to be the work of a surgeon or someone else used to taking a scalpel to the soft tissues of the human body. Which, okay, didn't mean anything unnatural was involved. Maybe the victim had particularly beautiful eyes and some crazy wanted them for their private collection. Or maybe the victim had witnessed something they shouldn't have, and the murderer wanted to really emphasise the point.
I don't know. People kill people for all sorts of reasons. But the removal of both eyes reminded me of something. I resisted the temptation to call it instinct. That was magical thinking, within shouting distance of superstition; it was what we in the Office existed to stamp out. No, it was some half-remembered case from the archives, or some investigation I wasn't privileged enough to have full access to.
It didn't help that I hadn't slept much and that thinking straight was like trying to see through a fog rolling in off the Bristol Channel. I haven't told you the date. Let me tell you the date: 31st October. All Hallows' Eve. Samhain. Hallowe'en. The date when the veils between the worlds weaken and all leave in the Office is cancelled. I had my own reasons for dreading the date on top of all that: it was my birthday, and that was bad because it meant it would have been my brother's birthday too.
I forced my attention back to the body. The victim was a thirtyish guy, handsome if you excused his lack of eyes. He lay on his back, hands by his sides, as if he'd made himself comfortable and nodded off. It was hard not to read an expression of wide-eyed amazement upon his ruined face. Disbelief at how his day had gone. He wasn't clean-shaven, but his stubble was trimmed, deliberate. His suit was tailored, fashionably skinny, and his new leather shoes shone. All of which was odd in itself: the house was a boarded-up hovel in a row of boarded-up hovels, in a part of Cardiff where most of the terraces had been demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to make room for tower blocks. So, a pimp or a drug-dealer, maybe. Perhaps he'd walked right into some rival street-gang's ambush.
"This thing with the eyes," I said. "Is that the calling-card of any of the local mobsters?"
A uniformed officer squatted beside me. He was no one I knew. From what I could see of his features, he looked like he was maybe only a few years out of university – so about my age. Chances were he wasn't on the inside, and he thought I was from some specialist police unit rather than a completely separate arm of government not subject to Heddlu lines of command. The misunderstanding often came in handy.
"Never seen anything like this," he said, voice muffled through his mask. "When the local bastards want to make a point, they don't go in for delicate surgery, they go in for as much gore as possible. Right bloody animals they are."
I leaned in closer to examine the eye-sockets, picking up the faint tang of a caustic chemical even through my mask. The eyeballs had been removed recently. The only blood was a dried trickle of watery red down the left side of the man's head. Someone had gone to the trouble of cleaning up as they went along, just as a surgeon would. Most likely, there'd been more than one of them: one to cut, one to swab.
"Who alerted you to the crime?"
"It was sheer luck. They're planning to knock this terrace down, and someone from the company came in to make sure no one was squatting."
"That's quite a coincidence."
"I suppose it is."
Then there was the pentagram. The victim lay in its exact centre, head to the south. Either he'd been placed within or it had been drawn around him. The former seemed more likely. I'd only seen a few mystic circles in my three years with the Office, but that was enough to tell the difference between a fake and one humming with real power. This was the genuine article, emblazoned with sigils conveying screams of torment when glimpsed from the corner of your eye. I was too lowly to be trusted with full knowledge of the forbidden alphabets, but I had some inkling of what I was looking at. The pentagram sent a chill shivering through me, made my testicles contract walnut-tight.
Something malign had taken place in this room.
