Paranoia and deception overtake reason in this novel of suspense and dark humorIn this claustrophobic tale of urban despair and existential noir, ex-cop Phineas Poe--protagonist of Will Christopher Baer's first novel, Kiss Me, Judas--returns to Denver to find that reality has been rewritten and the laws of reason redrawn. When Phineas is asked by his old ally, Detective Moon, to find a missing officer named Jimmy Sky, he becomes an unwitting participant in a live role-playing game. Everyone he meets has multiple personalities, and Phineas himself soon loses track of his own various identities. Crossing the lines between traditional noir, fantasy, and edgy realism, Penny Dreadful shares sensibilities with everything from the books of William Gibson and Neal Gaiman to the films Trainspotting and The Matrix and the webgames Doom and Myst.