Neverwhere

The London that Gaiman hides beneath the real one is full of forgotten stations, talking rats and doors onto lost places, and the prose is the main pleasure: wry, richly descriptive and unmistakably British, with dialogue that sketches a character in a line. Very little is explained, so readers who like their fantasy with rules may feel adrift. Those happy to follow an ordinary Londoner through a dark, funny, deeply odd adventure will be rewarded.

Worth knowing Richard Mayhew, a young Scot with a job in London and a fiancée who chooses restaurants, stops on the pavement to help a bleeding girl, and the next morning his flat is being let, his bank card does not work and nobody can see him. The girl is Door, from London Below, the city under the city where the people who fall through the cracks live, and where Knightsbridge has a knight, Earl’s Court has an earl and there really is an angel called Islington; Richard goes with her, the Marquis de Carabas and a bodyguard called Hunter, pursued by Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, who have been killing people for a very long time. Neil Gaiman wrote it in 1996 as the novel of the BBC series he made with Lenny Henry, and the novel outlived the series. His first solo novel, and still the one to start with.

The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.