The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal Review

Even though the just-started series “The Green Men” does happen in the same universe as “The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal,” the casebook doesn’t require any additional reading to be understood - it’s rather the other way around, since “The Green Men” refers to characters and situations from the casebook every now and then. As “The Henchmen of Zenda,” which I already reviewed earlier, the book was written by K.J. Charles and contains a male-male relationship. Unlike the henchmen - which seem to live in the only late 19th/early 20th century European country where homosexuality is allowed - the casebook is set in England, where homosexuality was against the law at that time. This plays a little into the setting, but doesn’t dominate it.

“The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal” is written in a style not unlike that of John H. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame. The viewpoint character is not ghost hunter Simon Feximal himself, but his chronicler and lover Robert Caldwell. Starting out as a client, because the house he’d inherited in the countryside and wanted to sell was haunted, Caldwell becomes Simon’s lover and constant companion over the course of the first few stories. That’s one point where “The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal” differs from “The Henchmen of Zenda” - it’s made up of shorter stories which tell of the different adventures which Simon and Robert had together over the course of their 23-year-long relationship. It also features several other ghost hunters and more are mentioned, among them also some who are known through literature. K.J. Charles herself clearly has read a lot of literature from her target era of late 19th and early 20th century and makes good use of that in her own stories.

The stories themselves are not only about ghosts, even though spooks of various kinds feature in them. They’re also about the government trying to control the arcanists and occultists who work on their own (it’s still at it after WWI, when “The Green Men” is set). They’re also about fights between those arcanists and occultists based on different ideas about their work. And Robert, who has no special abilities, is in the middle of it all, more than once threatened by creatures he can’t defend himself against.

As a matter of fact, Robert’s livelihood is ruined by a mysterious government agent for wanting to tell the world the truth about some dark secrets of the royal family. This, however, only serves to bring Robert and Simon closer together - as Robert can no longer work as a journalist, he becomes Simon’s chronicler and companion full-time.

The story also slowly gives out information about the mysterious Simon Feximal and his sister Miss Kay. Both of them are powerful, but weren’t born with their powers. This, actually, also changes Robert’s life, as he undergoes a magical procedure to save his lover’s life at one point.

K.J. Charles has a good balance between the different mysteries and myths she creates for the stories, the deepening relationship between Simon and Robert, their physical relationship (as always, K.J. Charles does a very good job and the scenes are written very straight-forward and visual), and the reactions of their surroundings (which range from acceptance to blackmail). Since during that era (and in every book from her I’ve read, safe for “The Henchmen of Zenda”) the characters could go to jail (or at least an asylum) for engaging in homosexual intercourse, there’s a constant threat to them being found out by the wrong people.

The characters - and not just Simon and Robert - are engaging and interesting, the late Victorian era comes through very well, and the book stays interesting from the first to the last page. The stories themselves build on the same basic principles of magic and the solution is often found in Simon’s special ability to have ghosts ‘write’ their story on his body, so he and Robert can read it and help them reach closure. Robert, on the other hand, has a sense for stories and often an instinctive understanding of what is happening, which also helps a lot with the ghost hunting.

While Simon, his sister, but also most of the other occultists prefer to put the ghosts at rest - since the ghosts usually are not evil, but merely kept from their final rest by something which others did to them -, one of them simply exorcises the ghosts (at least until one of them proves far too strong to be simply exorcised), which means damning them to eternal suffering. The man himself is also pretty manipulative, using his abilities to force his will on other people, something Simon doesn’t bear well, especially when Robert is involved. This also gives several stories a certain urgency, since Simon and Robert have to act before their colleague can and free the ghosts before they can be damned.

It’s not always ghosts, either, there’s also stories which revolve around local myths and stories about Simon’s and Miss Kay’s past. The whole casebook is interesting to read, the short stories also make it a nice read for when you can’t read much in one go.

On the whole, I can only recommend “The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal,” provided you love both ghosts and male-male relationships. The writing is good, the characters are interesting, and the stories very entertaining.