When I first started reading Kim Newman stories, the best part was always the initial shock of an incredibly cool, clever concept, twisting and rearranging things out of popular culture and the real world into a kind of thesis to be explored through to its logical conclusion, often unexpected, yet completely thriling and satisfying. I've gotten so used to the high concept of his Anno Dracula saga that it was a joy to be reminded of that thrill here, as Raymond Chandler narrates a hard-boiled investigation into Hollywood mad-science in Hollywood with Boris Karloff. Newman uses the characters' biographies and their works to bring them to life and make them a lovable, compelling pair working a strange case together of rich people out to make movies and live forever in the literal sense not the artistic sense, but nonetheless using move magic to make it happen. Terrific.