Part of Series
A novella of the Archonate. Earth in its penultimate age: ancient, inbred, bucolic, full of antique secrets and even more archaic intrigues. Under a melancholy orange sun, decaying aristocratic families still wield their feudal powers after thousands of generations; but the Archon is their subtle absolute ruler, and he has placed certain cruel excesses, and certain abandoned country estates, permanently out of bounds... Luff Imbry, corpulent master thief, must penetrate one of those forbidden properties. For millennia ago, a sadistic nobleman built there an underground maze, its walls hung with priceless works of art, its corridors stalked by intelligent torture machines, a secret domain where the corrupt blue-blood would imprison and torment anyone who offended him. Determined to liberate the most precious of the labyrinthÕs treasures, Imbry recruits an unwilling "ghost" — the preserved essence of the mad duke's long-dead granddaughter—as his guide. But in the twisted darkness, the fat man finds that the dead cannot always be trusted. In his latest witty tale of the Archonate, Matthew Hughes sets his most engaging character on a collision course with forces dark and devious. Can even the legendary craftiness of Luff Imbry triumph without aid from higher powers?
Author
Born in Liverpool, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old. Married since late 1960s, he has three grown sons. He is currently relocated to Britain. He is a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers. A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians. He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005. He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada. His novels and stories regularly make the Locus Magazine annual recommended reading list.
