After reading the first two Sgt. Janus works, I recently read the third: Sgt. Janus on the Dark Track. Sgt Janus is an occult detective created by Jim Beard. Flinch! Books had brought him back in print with 3 volumes. I recommend you read them in order.
Sgt. Roman Janus is an occult detective in the mode of Carnacki and similar Edwardian-era characters, and is set in the same timeframe, though the time is not exactly clear.
The prior volume had Sgt. Janus return from the dead or wherever he was. Clearly working to get his life back in order, he has gone cross country to attend a conference of other occult detectives. We get mention of a few of the attendees. For some reason, Janus decides to ask Valerie Havelock-Mayer to accompany him. I thought it interesting that he would after the events of the prior work.
This novel is presented through the viewpoint of several characters, told through diary or log entries, telegraphs, or letters. The main ones are the diary entries of Valerie. But we get items from other characters. Janus and Valerie are returning via train, and meet several people. Most importantly is a politician and his young daughter. Janus notices that the daughter, Laura, is using a Ouija board. And as this is a reality where spirits do exist, this is not good as it invites in dark spirits. And an especially strong one. Strange things start to occur, and this begins to affect their travel.
Janus is able to figure out part of what is happening. There had been a dangerous bandit from 30 years back who had kidnapped the daughter of a rich industrialist, Victoria Jordan. Instead of trying to escape, she joined him in his crimes. She was rescued and sent away, but was pursued by the bandit. This all came to a head when he was killed. On the same train that everyone is traveling on. So Laura’s activities have allowed for the dark spirit of this bandit to come back, and cause problems for the living today.
Janus takes a dangerous chance to invoke the “Dark Track” to put things to rest for good, but has a strange effect on several that brings them into a sort of “alternate reality” to travel to the company town of Jordan before all is done.
Overall it’s a good work, though presented in a non-traditional manner. We get a return of Joshua Hargreaves, and learned a little about what happened to him after the last work. And Janus has gained a new assistant. It will be interesting to see how he is used in following works.
In the afterward, the author discusses what may come next. He may write a work focusing on Sgt. Janus starting out, a “Sgt. Janus: Year One” so to speak. Or another idea is to write a followup work to this one. I think whichever one he does would be welcome. Hopefully we won’t have to wait as long as we have for this work.
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