The Amulet (The Midnight Eye Files)

by William Meikle

It was supposed to be an easy case. Fast money, and a way to kill some time-something Derek Adams, a down-on-his-luck Glasgow private investigator, has way too much of. Recover a stolen family heirloom, and try to keep the relationship with his very beautiful-and very married-client, strictly professional. Easy. But the Johnson Amulet is no mere trinket...and Derek isn't the only person trying to find the priceless relic. Before long he's up to his...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1536814148
• ISBN13: 9781536814149
• Release Date: July 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.6" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

nice and dark

It's Phillip Marlow with a supernatural Cthulhu twist. I enjoyed it and my husband loved it. He insisted I order the next book in the series.

The Amulet, Lovecraft at its best.

I've been reading Lovecraft and his many followers for more than 40 years. Meikle's Amulet is one of the best that I have ever read and clearly the best Lovecraftian novel in recent years.

MYTHOS MEETS CRIME NOIR

Mixing the hard boiled/crime noir of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler with Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos may seem out of place, but afterall, all of these men did write for the pulps at one time. While it's set in present day Scotland, author William Meikle infuses it so many 30's and 40's elements that one can wonder why he didn't just set his story during that time period to begin with. Derek Adams is a Glasgow private investigator and he fits the image we all have of noir detectives: smart-alecky, drinks too much, smokes too much, and has a dingy apartment that doubles as his office. You can practically picture a ceiling fan that rotates far too slowly to provide even the slightest breeze. And of course into his office walks a mysterious, dark-haired dame, wanting to hire Adams. Sure, it hits on every cliché in the genre but Meikle is so earnest about it you hardly care. It's obvious that Meikle reveres guys like Chandler and Hammett so who can fault him for that. Fiona Dunlop wants Adams to find a rather strange looking amulet that was stolen from her home. She gives Adams very little information other than a picture. When Adams takes the picture to a professor friend of his he finds that this is no mere trinket. The Johnson Amulet is thousands of years old and is virtually priceless. Borrowing elements of Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb, we learn the history of the amulet discovered in the early part of the 20th century. The amulet is traced back to the ancient priest kings of UR and its discovery was aided by an old, wizened Arab who appears mysteriously. Derek now knows there is much more to this case than meets the eye. He begins to investigate local antique dealers and fencers, piecing together more and more about the amulet, but everyone he comes in contact with seems to quickly die a horrible death putting Adams in the spotlight of the local police. When Adams tails one prominent antique dealer to an out of the way country estate, he is witness to ceremony of black magic that calls forth a horrific creature from some damnable plane of existence who is intent on getting the amulet back. But for what purpose? Derek's friend soon finds evidence that the amulet may go all the way back to the Great Old Ones who ruled the world long before man and specifically mentions Cthulhu who lies dreaming in his ocean tomb waiting to walk the earth once more. In edition to Cthulhu, Meikle makes mention of Abdul Alhazred, writer of the Necronomicon and later describes a swirling black mass and the playing of a crazed flute which is reference to the idiot God Azathoth. Now Aided by Fiona Dunlop and her husband, both practiced in the arts of magic, they have to stop this group from using the Amulet to open the way to the Old Ones and reverting the earth back to its primeval origins. Despite all the Mythos elements, and they do come hot and heavy in the last ¼ of the book (the final showdown takes place at Arkham House!

World weary gumshoe confronts the mythos

The Midnight Eye Files: The Amulet is a newly published book by Willie Meikle. Fortunately for us, it looks like the start of a new series. The publisher is Black Death Books. It is a standard sized trade soft cover, 197 pages that's all story, no introduction or author's notes. The cover art is by KHP studios, with no specific photographer credited. It shows a world weary gumshoe, cigarette in hand, with a femme fatale in the background. My favorite touch was the Elder Sign ring. Production qualities are good with maybe 1 typo. There may have been a few Glasgow references or language that I missed, but the prose was both accomplished and accessible. In fact, Mr. Meikle's knowledge and characterizations of Glasgow made the book spring to life. It is only $15.00 with free shipping if you order $25 worth of stuff. All in all well worth the money! I must admit I approached this book with a bit of trepidation. I really was not won over by Island Life, a title by Mr. Meikle from a few years ago. I actually gave my copy away. I need not have worried. The Amulet was a triumph and I hope the beginning of a beautiful friendship with private eye Derek Adams. Maybe I was a sucker for it because my all time favorite movie is The Maltese Falcon, hands down. I just love all those old Bogart flicks. Schizophrenically, I've never read a Raymond Chandler, even after reading reams of Doc Savage, Tarzan, Ludlum, Clancy and other potboilers. Maybe I'll mosey to the bookstore and give them a gander, as Chandler is treated reverentially by Meikle. To explain how the mythos fits is I have to include some mild spoilers, so stop now if that is going to bother you. Derek Adams is a down on his luck £250-per-day-plus-expenses gumshoe in Glasgow, what little time he isn't chain smoking he spends getting drunk. Or at least drinking really hard. Man if I had 10% of what he downed in this book I would be completely incapacitated for weeks! In walks a knock out dame with a case and it is trouble (it always is isn't it?)! It seems there is an amulet from ancient Ur, of the image of a terrible tentacled demon. It was unearthed in an archeological dig decades earlier, perhaps under nefarious circumstances, under the influence of a mysterious ancient Arab. The amulet has been stolen from its current owners under suspicious circumstances, with a mysterious ancient Arab needing sighted around the fringes. What follows is a well paced story of Derek first doing some basic PI work, and some flashbacks to the dig at Ur. Mutilated bodies start piling up, the local police start hassling Derek and it becomes obvious some supernatural agency is involved. After the mystery is largely solved, the book's last 50 or so pages turn into a sorcerous confrontation between the amulet's owners, a scholar and Wiccan witch, and those who want to use its power to open the gates of reality to awaken Great C'thulhu. The demon of the amulet is not a specific mythos entity b

Meikle's latest will hypnotize you

Tight, sharp, and cynical, Meikle's characters are brilliantly portrayed. Sure the main character has a fascination with Humphrey Bogart that borders on obsessive, but it's okay, it works here. Why? Because he is the quintessential detective you imagine every P.I. to be. His wit is quick, his obvious blindness to his client's motives is at the end - legendary, and his heartache and empathy is palpable. Perfect. What wasn't perfect was the secondary characters' dialect. Now, I understand Mr. Meikle is British, but some of the casts' dialogue became more of a mystery than the case itself. In fact, in order to save my sanity and my need for all things orderly and clear, I had to skip over a few of the interactions between Derek and the locals. Other than dousing us in the local slang, Meikle's style of writing is nostalgic, baroque, and spellbinding. Never has an author had me so caught up in his mystery that I forgot to smoke. Mr. Meikle, you may just be literary Nicorette. While the outline to the story is not wholly original, the fleshed out plot is. Formative and intelligent, this story has it all: Mystery, horror, lost-love, and friendship. In other words, it could become a classic. Now, don't go getting the idea that this is some creampuff book; it's not. But I do have to admit the horror is sparse. In fact, the blood count is shamelessly low, but that's okay, the supernatural elements carry this book into the genre nicely. Sultry and casual, the story moves at a languid pace. Starting at a near crawl, the pace increases with a progressive speed that leaves you breathless before it's over and done with. Pure Lovecraft, the atmosphere is dark and disturbing with just a hint of decay. You can smell the cheap gin and cigarettes, but there's an underlying aftertaste of mold.