Review: The Domino Men

The Domino Men 
Jonathan Barnes
Published February 1st 2009 by William Morrow (first published February 21st 2008)
My rating:      

The Domino Men is the story of poor Henry Lamb. He leads a seemingly drab life until the day he visits his grandfather who fell into a coma. A window washer falls from the hospital and tells him, “The answer is yes.” From this point on it is a fast pace roller-coaster of a novel. Henry is whisked away by an organization that his grandfather worked for, and leaps from adventure into adventure. Henry is the key pawn to saving London. There has been a war waged between the House of Windsor and the people of London for over 200 years. And it has to end.

The novel has a truly bizarre cast of characters. Henry is our hero, and the events mostly play out from his first person POV, there are exceptions to this because the manuscript is periodically hijacked by the loyalists from the Royal Family.

I am not sure what Barnes intended, but Henry Lamb often seemed pathetic. Or perhaps he lacked the same creativity and outlandishness that the other characters possess. But then again this is my problem with some moves – the villains are far more entertaining. The book’s namesake are two of the villain’s in the novel. The Domino Men AKA the Prefects, AKA Hawker and Boone are a pair of disturbingly twisted tweedle-dee tweedle-dumb-esque grown men who dress like school boys and take maniacal pleasure in torturing and reeking total havoc.

I found the novel to go from grotesque to humorous and then back again. It’s a strange place to be; yet Barnes pulls this off quite well. It’s a truly bizarre ride, but nevertheless I did enjoy it.