Though Mike Shevdon's Sixty-One Nails has frequently been compared to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, it stands on its own as a wholly different book with its own unique alternative London urban fantasy world with its own rules. It starts with two heart attacks on the London Underground - the first being a random stranger who falls on the tracks when they have a heart attack, the second is the main character, Niall Petersen, who has a heart attack after seeing the first one happen and overexerting himself trying to change his commute to work. For a Londoner that frequently uses TFL, unfortunately, this sounds fairly normal. However, having his life saved by the mysterious Blackbird is only the start of Niall's introduction to a secret London where Fae lurk at every corner and are protected by six of the seven Fae Courts.
When it comes to characters who are discovering latent powers they had, it's interesting and refreshing to see them do so when they are middle-aged and have settled into a certain lifestyle. Niall Petersen is a Monday to Friday, Central London office job divorced father of a 14-year-old he shares custody of with his ex-wife, and so, though I do still enjoy the young teenager or adult coming into their powers, it's good to see a character who has grown past the usual uncertainties of their younger years about themselves and their lives and then discover something new and extraordinary about themselves they had no idea about. Being told by a complete stranger, that being Blackbird, that he has Fae blood and the near-death experience awoke the powers that come with it, he is understandably at a point in his life where he's cautious about trusting her words as he thinks he knows what the world is like and who he is. And so it's interesting to see a character like this come to terms with this new reality, start to formulate these new fears that come with it and adapt to learn how he fits into it all, especially with the first-person narrative that is exclusively in his voice.
Blackbird was an intriguing character as his guide to the hidden London, which is almost entirely underground. There was constantly a great sense of mystery about her, it's hard to get to know who she is and why her loyalties lie wherever they do. Early on she states that she inadvertently made herself responsible for Niall when she decided to save his life and that's why she stuck with him but I couldn't help but feel like there was always more than what the author was telling us, even when she reveals more private parts of herself. For most of the first half of the book, she uses Fae glamour to disguise herself as an older woman of pensioner age which comes across as her way of keeping people at a distance and not getting close to anyone. It's an easy disguise to have people ignore and easily let go of any attachment they may have formed.
Another thing this book does a little bit differently from most is the time span of the events of the book. Some books take place across months and years and some take place across the span of a few days or a few weeks. When an author makes the passage of time through a book quite short, it shows their skill in making a reasonable number of things realistically happen across that time. And this is where Shevdon has shown his skill as the events of this book start on a Thursday morning and mostly end on Sunday evening the same week and then skipping to Tuesday, and it does not seem implausible that everything happened in those few days. Other than the extent to which Niall and Blackbird's emotional attachment to one another has grown but it's not the first book I've read where those relationships grow very quickly.
The Courts themselves were quite absent from the book, there were moments where I kept expecting to be introduced to someone from them but it wouldn't happen. Blackbird tells Niall a brief history early on of the Seven Courts and why the Seventh Court is absent from this world and locked away in another, what led to the severing of those ties and what would happen if they were to come through to this world. As an enemy that could throw a wrench in the works at any moment, the Seventh Court were the most present but even then it was a brief few pages at the beginning of the novel and then a couple of significant chapters towards the end. It didn't feel like they were a very big threat other than when it came to keeping them away from the human worlds. Though the other six Courts is where Niall could have received some protection that would have helped at a few points throughout the book, they don't make an appearance until the final few chapters. Considering the series is called Courts of the Feyre, I would have liked to see them play a larger role than they did as they came across as a very small part of the story even though they were some of the most significant players.
Reasons to Recommend:
- Older protagonists that aren't dealing with youthful uncertainties
- Fans of alternative London books
- Old seemingly obsolete traditions having a purpose
- The rarely done urban fantasy take on Fae
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