Carter & Lovecraft: A Novel

Written by Jonathan L. Howard

Narrated by Ari Fliakos

"Carter & Lovecraft is a Pandora's box loaded with all the wonderfully twisted stuff I love, including a two-fisted homicide cop turned PI, warped realities, a mysterious bookstore, the Cthulhu mythos, a dash of romance, and creepy fish-men. What's not to love? Jonathan L. Howard knows how to show his readers a wickedly good time." —Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Ringers

Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case—the hunt for a serial killer—went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he's a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him.

First he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he's never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn't want a new boss. She's Emily Lovecraft, the last known descendant of H.P. Lovecraft, the writer from Providence who told tales of the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods, creatures and entities beyond the understanding of man.

Then people start dying in impossible ways, and while Carter doesn't want to be involved, he's beginning to suspect that someone else wants him to be. As Carter reluctantly investigates, he discovers that H. P. Lovecraft's tales were more than just fiction, and he must accept another unexpected, and far more unwanted, inheritance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Oct 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781427264275

Jonathan L. Howard

JONATHAN L. HOWARD is a game designer, scriptwriter, and a veteran of the computer-games industry since the early nineties, with titles such as the Broken Sword series to his credit. He is author of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Johannes Cabal the Detective, and Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute, as well as the YA novels Katya’s World and Katya’s War. He lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and daughter.

Reviews for Carter & Lovecraft

[Jesse Bernal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic story and characters. Excellent portrayal of the spirit behind Lovecrafts works. Highly recommend this book!

[Nathan Bar-Fields · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent narration. The narrator really brought the story to life.

[John Clements · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very good book, enjoyable a new look at Lovecrafts storys.

[bluiee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nicely done, recommend this book gor all fans of the Lovecraft madness.

[Josh Noyes · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The first problem with the book is that there were far too many pop culture references, many of which lazily used and the rest overexplained to the point of feeling like the author is trying to show off. Likewise, the author’s frequent injections of his political and religious views would be irritating on its own, but he also makes characters who probably wouldn’t realistically have those views say them as well.

The plot has a great setup, which quickly plows headlong into boring attempts at twists, most of which turn out to be complete non-twists, except for the few non-sequitors that go totally unexplained (possibly even forgotten).

Additionally, it’s a basic “oh, all these things you thought were stories are all true!” plot, but the attempts to shoehorn a realistic explanation for Lovecraft’s stories require not only creating an alternative history (which I can accept) but a completely alternative biography and even mentality for H. P. Lovecraft. In a book that makes several jabs at people who worship ‘the Mythos’ without actually understanding Lovecraft, this is ironic, but the alternative bio is so ludicrous that the irony quickly transforms to tedium and then to incredulity.

Frankly, once the character inherits the bookstore the whole thing goes downhill to one of the absolute worst final climaxes I’ve ever seen. The author clearly intended a Lovecraftian ending, humanity nothing but playthings for the universe, but made his characters too empowered for it to come off as anything other than simply lazy.

And to add insult to injury - 2 major mysteries (both relating to phone calls) go completely unexplained.

As far as the reader, he’s whatever. He does ok at the reading, does obsequious creep well, and understands punctuation if not modulation or pausing for dramatic effect. He cannot do women’s voices, which is a problem in a book with more female characters than males, but a female reader would be weird since the PoV character is male.

Frankly, this is one of the worst audiobooks I’ve found on Scribd. It was a waste of my time, an affront to my intelligence and an insult to every far more talented author referenced in this book. Especially HP Lovecraft, an author I consider poor, is somehow still demeaned by his association with this book.

[5toMerodeador · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Super interesting, addictive, and mysterious. A great book to start the year. (Translated from Spanish)