A Hard Day’s Knight
A Novel Of The Nightside
by Simon R. Green
Hardcover | paperback | Kindle
Ace Books
Paperback Release Date: December 27, 2012

Welcome to the Nightside, the darkest part of London, where it is always three o’clock in the morning. A Hard Day’s Knight is the eleventh book in the Nightside series from Simon R. Green and it is one of his best. Magical swords, threat of another interplanary war, and lots of folks trying to kill our hero, John Taylor. But let’s be honest, someone is ALWAYS trying to kill John.

We step into this story right after the last book and for poor old John, the hits just keep on coming! Someone sent him a package and inside is nothing less than Excalibur! No Lady of the Lake for this guy, just the regular old mail. As soon as he touches it, however, all of Nightside seems to know that he has it and of course they want to take it from him.

To track down some assistance, our persistent P.I. travels back into the actual city of London. Using his innate magical ability to find things no matter how well they are hidden, he manages to find the folks he is seeking only to discover they are not going to help him as much as he thought. Besides, they seem to be involved in both internal strife and the beginnings of a race war. No, not that type of racism, more like human versus non-human.

Lots of travel, death and mayhem. Of course, Suzie Shooter is helping him as much as she can…the upside of dating the Nightside’s deadliest bounty hunter. Not a whole lot of interaction from other mainstay characters as John spends a lot of time traveling in this one. But the storyline itself is nothing compared to the surprise ending! I’m diving into the next one as soon as I can manage it.

If you haven’t read this series before, I cannot recommend this novel as a starting point. It’s very much a continuance of the last one, The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny. But if you have read the series, do not miss out on this one. More happens in this story than in almost any other one. It’s on par with the one where John figures out who his mom is, you know the one… Now you want to read it, don’t you?