The Spiral Labyrinth

From Publishers WeeklyThe superior melding of fantasy, humor and detection seen in Majestrum (2006) is displayed to even better advantage in Hughes's second chronicle of Henghis Hapthorn, a discriminator (or consulting detective) on an alternate Earth. Aided by his intuitive inner self, Osk Rievor, and his faithful grinnet, an AI housed in an ape-cat body, Hapthorn accepts a request from wealthy socialite Effrayne Choweri to find her legendarily devoted and romantic husband, Chup, who vanished after looking into the purchase of a small spaceship. When the sleuth finds that several others who had considered buying the vessel also disappeared, he poses as a prospective buyer, only to be captured by a super-intelligent fungus seeking to expand its experience of reality by leeching the thoughts and knowledge of others. Hapthorn's wry first-person narration recalls Bertie Wooster, and Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable. News that a third adventure is in the works will surely please fans of many genres. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.From BooklistResembling a futuristic hybrid of the arch escapades of Bertie Wooster and the thought-provoking cases of Sherlock Holmes, Hughes' Hengis Hapthorn novels delight intellect and imagination. As Old Earth's foremost discriminator (i.e., private detective), Hapthorn combines a logician's savvy and an aptitude for handling unforeseen perils with aplomb. In his latest adventure, his empirical skills face a serious challenge when he is unexpectedly transported centuries forward to a future in which magic has replaced physics as the universal modus operandi. Worse, Hapthorn's intuitive alter ego, Osk Rievor, has unaccountably abandoned him in a bewildering culture whose rival wizards appear bent on using Hapthorn as a hapless pawn in a magical power struggle. Only his wits and the erudition of his fruit-devouring mammalian personal assistant will save him from a fate involving either servitude or death. Hughes' masterfully eloquent style and clever plot twisting provide Hapthorn with an investigative panache rivaling those of the leading sleuths of mainstream detective fiction. Hays, Carl