This is a not completely successful story that uses themes from H.P. Lovecraft and mixes them with a splash of steampunk to get something different. In an unnamed city someone is killing prostitutes, the dead women all sprout tentacles and fear and anxiety are growing. Joe, a good natured man, sees Jenny Finn in the street and seeks to speak to her, he is interrupted by a stranger who shouts at Jenny and when Joe tries to stop him attacking her, is beaten off. Joe thinks that the stranger is the killer and claims that he is, the man is caught and killed by an enraged crowd. Joe in the meanwhile has discovered that he was mistaken and finds that Jenny Finn and the stranger are involved in a most peculiar fashion. There is some sort of plague going around, those effected by it sprout scales and octopus suckers and Jenny Finn has something to do with it. A greater conspiracy develops and envelopes Joe and it is finally resolved in a satisfactory fashion, including a fine “Christmas Carol” joke.
The reason this book does not quite succeed is that it is not quite creepy enough, the fishy plague, echoing H.P. Lovecraft’s ideas about semi human creatures hiding in the basements and underground tunnels of a port town, offspring of humans and older races that live in the sea waiting to return to dominance, is not bleak enough. It is slightly too picturesque, grotesque rather than repulsive. This robs the story of the essential weight it needs to grip the reader. Also the lettering in infuriating, it is so small I had difficulty reading it comfortably, it was a distraction and did not allow me to drop into the story as I read it. The severe change in art is a bit of a distraction as well. Still the book has enough good ideas and the art is striking, that it is worth reading.
