The Beast of Nightfall Lodge by S.A. Sidor

The follow-up to Fury From the Tomb begins in 1920, almost 35 years after the events of that first book. A mature Rom Hardy and Evangeline Waterson of the Institute for Singular Antiquities are reminiscing about prior adventures when Evangeline decides she wants to hear Rom’s version of one particular adventure having to do with a Beast at Nightfall Lodge back in 1890 in the mountains surrounding Raton New Mexico. The rest of the book describes that adventure in full detail.

This is a solid sequel to the first book, continuing the over-the-top plot and style. The main story involves a wealthy big-game hunter who seeks the ultimate kill. No not a human being…that’s been done to death. Instead, he hunts “the Beast”, a supernatural wendigo-type monster. To aid him in the hunt, he invites a number of guests to join in, including a huge hulking mountain man with a trained grizzly bear, a wild west gunslinger, a snake-oil salesman/inventor, a mute Native American, and a man claiming to be Billy the Kid (although the Kid had been killed by Pat Garrett several years previously -- sure looks like him though...). And of course, all four of Rom Hardy’s team from book one are invited as well. The prize for who can capture the Beast? The true and authentic golden calf idol from when Moses went up Mt Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Wouldn’t that be a fine addition to the Institute for Singular Antiquities!

What follows is a rollicking adventure mixed with gruesome horror, humor and supernatural injections of lycanthropy, séances, and resurrecting the dead. Once again, there is a lot of plot packed in to this one novel but somehow the author manages to make it a coherent story. It blends the best of Indiana Jones, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, the weird-west genre, and classic Universal monster movies.

This is modern pulp adventure done right. It’s fun reading all the way through and I certainly hope there are more to come in this series.