Five years after the previous Sgt. Janus book came out, we suddenly got the fourth one: Sgt. Janus and the House That Loved Death by Jim Beard. Again published by Flinch! Books with a cover by Jeffrey Ray Hayes again. Boy, that guy is everywhere now.
Sgt. Roman Janus is an occult detective somewhat in the mode of Carnacki and similar Edwardian-era characters, and is set in the same timeframe. However, the time is not exactly clear. He is called a “spirit breaker” as he helps spirits still stuck here to move on instead of fighting evil occult forces like others.
As this one follows on closely from the prior novel, I recommend you read the others in order. One new change is that the sergeant is joined by Gabriel Butters, who assisted him in the previous novel. Joshua Hargreaves from the prior works shows up later.
This novel is presented as a series of letters, newspaper articles, and reports, rather than normal conversations and the like. Again, set in Mount Airy, we start by reading a series of letters from a mysterious individual who sometimes signs as “Noman.” It’s clear that this individual is a serial killer who had operated 15 years prior and, for whatever reason, has returned. He seems to pick his victims more or less randomly, and the police are baffled.
When Sgt. Janus gets involved, more to help the spirits of his victims move on, he comes to the attention of this killer, who is not pleased. But Sgt. Janus is able to expose who the killer is, and this is resolved about halfway through the book.
Then things seem to go awry between Janus and his house. He is again making use of the Dark Trace (see the last novel), and the house seems to be bringing in someone to be the next “spirit breaker” to replace Janus. But who? And what will Janus do next?
In the afterward, the author discusses what may come next. At the end of the third work, he had spoken of doing one or two follow-on works. This is clearly one of those he spoke of, and is probably the last new Sgt. Janus work, we’ll see. But he also spoke of wanting to write a work focusing on Sgt. Janus starting out, a “Sgt. Janus: Year One,” so to speak. That could still happen. Hopefully, we will see this at some point. I look forward to it. In the meantime, check this out.
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