The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson: Horripilating Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos [Paperback]

The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson by William Jones is a trade paperback published by Chaosium. List price is $14.95; currently is not available directly from Amazon. Cover art is by Steven Gilberts, who gave us the covers of Frontier Cthulhu (my favorite of his works) and Arkham Tales (which I also liked better than this). A vile multi-tentacled thing with weirdly segmented legs is trying to pass through some portal. Mr. Gilberts seems to be the house artist for Chaosium these days. Page count is 240 but the actual text doesn't start until page 15, and there are scattered blank pages between sections. For the price, for publishers in this genre, I think this is a reasonably generous book. Production values are high and editing was tight; I didn't notice any typographical errors. Several of the stories have been published before (as noted in the useful acknowledgements, but only in obscure periodicals. I actually previously read Feasters of the Dark when it saw the light of print in Dreaming in R'lyeh (a magazine that tanked rapidly thereafter, lamented only because they welshed on my subscription money). The author William Jones is well known due to his tireless efforts on behalf of Elder Signs Press (one of my favorite publishing concerns!) and horror fiction in general.

Rudolph Pearson is a Doctor of Medieval Studies at Columbia University in New York. The stories in this book are his journals as presented by his great grandson many years later. In many ways this book is similar to The Tales of Inspector Legrasse by CJ Henderson. Although these stories were written across a span of years and could be read separately, in aggregate they read like interconnected chapters of a novel. In fact, here I disagree with the author. I think they must be read sequentially and would be far less enjoyable if taken out of context. In particular, Mr. Jones has slightly amended some of them so that they have less redundancy and fit together more seamlessly. Rather than list the individual story titles, I think it better to consider the individual works as a whole. Dr. Pearson is summoned at first by Detective Matthew Leahy to help translate some strange words written in blood at the scene of a gruesome murder. This leads to a confrontation of strange creatures in the sewers of New York. One thing I really liked was that Mr. Jones did not elbow the reader in the side and harp on Lovecraftian context or entities; clearly these were ghouls and it did not need to be explicitly stated. I like a good ghoulish story (NB: Throne of Bones by McNaughton cannot be recommended highly enough, and we all regret that Charnel Feast will forever remain a concept and not a book); Mr. Jones' explanation of the ghouls' origin is as good as I have read. After that adventure, one of Dr. Pearson's colleagues, Effram Harris, creates a device that pierces the veil of reality. The outcome is pretty predictable but well executed. What follows is a creature that is clearly a Hound of Tindalos is attracted to Harris' temporal manipulations, causing mayhem throughout the city. The details of manipulation of the occult and the purposes of chants, sigils and gestures is more completely described in this book than in any except perhaps Where Goeth Nyarlathotep; again Mr. Jones has given a lot of thought to his subject matter and developed it carefully. It is up to Dr. Pearson to somehow stop this Hound. Along the way we meet his annoying colleague, Jordan Gabriel, an accomplished archeologist and brash go getter trying to break through in the man's world of the 1920s. At first our hero doesn't care for her, but anyone can see where this is eventually going. Now that Dr. Pearson is more in tune with the occult (for a very good reason that becomes clearer later) he is gradually drawn into the machinations of Gregor Van Eych, a wealthy New Yorker. Over several stories we learn about a gathering of mysterious forces, a darker underlying purpose and a cult of demon possessed souls that is striving to bring Xinlurgash, the ever consuming, into our world. Only Dr. Pearson gradually becomes aware of the truth of what is happening and he must harness all of his nascent sorcerous skills to save humanity, and his sanity. If or how this happens I leave to your reading pleasure. The book comes full circle to finish with a nice ghoulish denouement.

I found The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson to be an undemanding, thoroughly entertaining read; I finished it off into 2 or 3 breezy nights. I guess the fact that I didn't want to set it aside, that I kept wanting to know what happened next, is my strongest recommendation. Plotting was tight and moved along breathlessly. The main character developed and changed over the course of the book, although the supporting players were basically only loosely sketched out. Dialogue had some snap and sparkle. Lovecraftian elements were central to the book, but as I indicated before, Mr. Jones prefers understatement in this regard. If I have to point out one miscue, it would be that Dr. Pearson noted humanity was "the soul of the cosmos." In most Lovecraftian fiction humanity is a barely noticeable snack on Cthulhu's smorgasbord.

So here we have a reasonably priced book by a highly regarded author full of tightly written stories in engaging prose. All Lovecraftians have to have it; go ahead and order a copy.

"The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson: Horripilating Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos" is one of the best send ups in the lovecraftian occult detective genre. As an ardent admirer of all things related to the Lovecraft mythos, I found myself enjoying these tales of horror well into the night and so will you. The setting is in New York City circa 1920's. Dr. Rudolph Pearson, professor of ancient languages at Columbia University is called upon to help the police solve a brutal murder. As the investigation progresses, the bodies start to drop and the wierdness factor increases. With a colorful cast of characters from evil power hungry industrial tycoons to crazed ancient sorcerers. Locales ranging from the hallowed halls of Columbia University to the mysterious Middle East and beyond. Each short story stands on it's own but is uniquely tied together to form a cohesive novel. The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson will entertain even the most jaded connoisseur of horror.

More Seabury Quinn than Lovecraft. Much can be done with the occult detective formula, but here the execution is simply not in keeping with the author's ambitions. The writing is pedestrian, and the attempt to simulate the donnish prose of a 1920s academic is only intermittently successful. Characterization is no better than is typical of the genre, and the spunky heroine is a little too assertive for the era represented. Some of the horrors are just fine, but the author does not take the time and trouble to build up the atmosphere to make them memorable--the result is a sketchy narrative, more like an outline than a fully developed work. Not a terrible book, but rather like something from one of the lesser horror pulps of the 1930s; and if that's what you're in the mood for, you could do worse.

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