Sunday, March 30, 2014

Crossover of the Week



October 18-December 6, 1925
THE EXPRESS DIARIES
            An unlikely assemblage of individuals travels across Europe via the Orient Express to obtain the pieces of a statue called the Sedefkar Simulacrum before the cult known as the Brothers of the Skin. Professor Julius Smith, whose apparent death sets the adventurers on their course, first speaks at the Challenger Trust Banquet Lecture. One of the members of the group, Professor Alphonse Moretti, finds a reference to the Simulacrum in von Juntz’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The Duc d’Essientes is a member of the Brothers of the Skin. Moretti finds mentions of a Duc Jean Floressas d’Essientes in fashion and society papers from Paris in the 1870s. The leader of the expedition, Mrs. Betty Sunderland, writes in her diary “I suspect even the remarkable Mr. S. Holmes would find it difficult to uncover a trail grown so cold.” A portly balding gentleman with a small waxed moustache, who is either French or Belgian, appears.
            Novel by Nick Marsh, Innsmouth Free Press, 2012. The Challenger Trust is likely named after Professor George Edward Challenger from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and other works. Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes is Doyle’s most famous creation. Friedrich von Juntz’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten is a book created by Robert E. Howard to be part of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Duc d’Essientes (originally des Esseintes) is from J.-K. Huysmans’ novel À Rebours. The Duc appears to have extended his life via supernatural means. The gentleman with the waxed moustache is Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot.

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