The Man From The Diogenes Club

 

Action Guru

The Man From
The Diogenes Club
by Kim Newman
Titan Publishing
ISBN 9781781165744

A quick word to the wise about another absolute belter of a classic from Kim Newman, The Man From The Diogenes Club. Those new to Newman should at least recognise The Diogenes Club from its appearances in Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories, forever associated with his even smarter brother Mycroft Holmes. In the literary world of Mr. Newman, however, the gentleman’s club has been co-opted as the establishment where the more-secret-than-top-secret British intelligence service is run, especially... as in this case... where cases of unusual or supernatural phenomena are concerned.

The Diogenes Club features quite heavily in Newman’s Anno Dracula books too (reviews of those treasures coming very soon to this blog) but this manifestation, while sharing many of the same people, seems to operate in a slightly alternate universe to the Anno Dracula books. Which would explain why characters from those books are mentioned (and even turn up to help) throughout this collection of short stories about Richard Jeperson, the titular man from the Diogenes club. Sometimes this can get a little confusing, for sure...

For instance, in one of the stories in this tome, which has a kind of ‘brand new team of superheroes sent in to rescue the old team’ vibe, none other than the vampire Geneviève Dieudonné turns up to lend her talents. I’m guessing this isn’t the Anno Dracula version of Geneviève or there would be a lot more overt vampires in the text throughout this collection... it may be the Warhammer series version of Geneviève (also written by Newman) or someone else completely, I have no idea. But it was nice she gets an elaborate shout out in this tome.

Now, for these stories we have the central character of Richard Jeperson who Newman freely admits to being inspired by such 1960s TV fayre as The Avengers and Jason King and, yeah, certainly this has the feel of those in places. For me though... and there’s absolutely nothing to back this up... I reckon Jeperson is possibly inspired by Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius character... with a hefty dose of Sapphire and Steel thrown into the mix. Joining Jeperson for most (but not all) of the stories are the enigmatic Vanessa and, as we see recruited in the first story (although it’s not chronologically the first in this collection), a transferred copper called Fred Regent.

Although one or two tales seem chronologically misplaced (perhaps it’s writing order rather than story order, so to speak), they cover Jeperson’s exploits going from the 1950s (in a flashback from a story which starts off in the 1980s) right through to the 21st Century. And the stories are all fantastic, not a bad one among them as the writer tells tales involving such things as killer robots, living snowmen, a Soho Golem and even a killer TV soap opera, of all things. And being as it’s Mr. Newman, there are all kinds of cultural references littered throughout the stories. One of my favourite tales in the book is the second story, Moon Moon Moon - “It’s all trilogies these days. I blame Johnny Tolkien.” - which involves a bunch of killings which lead to a plot to stop the first moon landing by Armstrong and Co and even features small guest appearances by such notables as Cyrano De Bergerac, Baron Munchaussen, the Selenites, the Cybermen, Captain Haddock and even the Cat Women On The Moon.

The Soho Golem story is another corker, set in the seedy underbelly of London’s Soho and involving all manner of strippers and mob connections. And another firm favourite with me is the last tale, Swellhead, which involves a much older Jeperson in the age of the internet as he investigates, along with a team including the titular Swellhead of the story, Mr. Sewell Head, an underground lair beneath the ice where his coat, the exact same one he is also wearing at the same time as being brought said coat, is found riddled with bullet holes and some of his blood. Is it a time travel thing or is there something even more sinister going on? Either way, Mr. Newman gets away with working one of the best lines from the movie version of Barbarella into the mouth of his main character. He also finds a version of the novel 2001 - A Space Odyssey except, this one is co-authored by both Arthur C. Clark and Ray Bradbury so, yeah, there’s definitely something up.

Other thing I love about these stories is how Newman can just throw in a quick, cultural reference to place the story in a certain time zone by shorthand, rather than trumpet the exact decade each time. So, for instance, in a railway waiting room in the story The Man Who Got Off The Ghost Train, there’s a copy of Guy N. Smith’s The Sucking Pit waiting to be read. I was also very pleased with Newman’s correct usage of the expression ‘imp of the perverse’, after the Poe story. Seems to me I’ve seen that regularly mis-used over the years but Newman obviously totally ‘gets it’ and uses the term admirably. And, in the story which takes place on the sets of a TV soap opera, I was delighted by the term ‘To Darrin’ someone, meaning to replace an actor a long way into a run with someone so like him the audience doesn’t notice... named after the real life occurrence when Dick York, who played Darrin in Bewitched, was replaced after 170 episodes by Dick Sergeant for the remaining 84... with scarcely anyone in the audience noticing. This particular story also introduces a similar variant concept, ‘To Who’ someone... but I’ll let you figure out what that one is.

At the end of the day, I had an absolutely fantastic time with Kim Newman’s The Man From The Diogenes Club and, as usual with this writer, it’s a hard recommend all the way. Certainly add this to your reading list if you’ve not already done so.