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A review by chramies
The Riddle of the Traveling Skull by Harry Stephen Keeler
4.0
The reputation of Keeler is the Ed Wood of mystery fiction, so bad it's good, and all that - but armed with that opinion I find a genre mystery thriller, albeit one with some baroque language, unlikely coincidences, weird characters and long sentences. Also, it's supposed to be funny. That Keeler did anything experimental at all seems to mark him out in this genre as beyond the pale - if it had been literary fiction nobody would have been surprised at the things he does.
Neil Gaiman's take on Keeler is a better one - "not 'so bad it's good', but 'it shouldn't be good, but it is'."
This may be his most 'accessible' novel - apart from the turns of baroque phrase and the alarming multi-coincidence pileup at the end, it is really a straightforward (well...) detective story. Besides, Robert Rankin exists to make Harry S. Keeler look sane.
Neil Gaiman's take on Keeler is a better one - "not 'so bad it's good', but 'it shouldn't be good, but it is'."
This may be his most 'accessible' novel - apart from the turns of baroque phrase and the alarming multi-coincidence pileup at the end, it is really a straightforward (well...) detective story. Besides, Robert Rankin exists to make Harry S. Keeler look sane.