The Bride Wroe Black Leather by Simon R. Green

About the book: In the secret heart of London, under the cover of endless darkness, the Nightside caters to anyone with any unusual itch that needs to be scratched. But enter at your own risk. The party animals who live here may be as inhuman as their appetites...


My name is John Taylor. The Nightside is my home. I didn't plan it that way. In fact, I once tried to get away. But I came back. And now it seems I'm settling down, with a full-time job (in addition to my work as a very private eye) as Walker-the new Voice of the Authorities in the Nightside-and a wedding in the offing.

I'm marrying the love of my life, Suzie Shooter, the Nightside's most fearsome bounty-hunter. But nothing comes easy here. Not life. Not death. And for certain, not happily-ever-after. Before I can say "I do," I have one more case to solve as a private eye-and my first assignment as Walker.

Both jobs would be a lot easier to accomplish if I weren't on the run, from friends and enemies alike. And if my bride-to-be weren't out to collect the bounty on my head...

First line: I went walking up and down the packed streets of the Nightside, making my way through all the desperate conversations and dodgy deals, through all the damned and the disgraced, all the lost souls searching for something they could buy, then call love; and everywhere I went, people nodded quickly and politely to me, and out of respect.

My thoughts: This is book  number 12 in the Nightside series and apparently the last. I have always enjoyed this quirky, unique series and hate to see it end. As endings go, this one was great. The series was wrapped up nicely with Shotgun Suzie and  and John Taylor getting married, but only after John solves his final case as a PI. It had everything I've come to expect from a Nightside novel: strange beings and places, good vs evil, friends, enemies, friends who could be enemies, over the top action, weird sarcastic banter, and....I could go on but I won't.  This has never been a serious series, but it is lots of fun to read with it's outrageous situations, locations and characters. Here is an example of an ongoing situation: John never gets in a cab, never calls for a cab because .....it might eat him. Yep, that is common in the Nightside. This one had all that in spades. The stories are always a bit on the dark side, which works since the sun never shines in the Nightside. I'll miss this series. I may have to go back and reread them.

Quote:

1. "Half my taste buds are still crying their eyes out, and the other half are threatening to sue for post-traumatic stress disorder.""
2. “After all, you’re only an immortal until someone manages to kill you. After that, you were just long-lived.”
3.  "...Anyway, Dagon told me he'd Seen something really dangerous coming to the Nightside."   I waited. But that was all he had to say. "Well" I said, "Nothing to scary about that. It's pretty much business as usual, in the Nightside."

Challenges:
100+