Shadows Bend manages all this while taking the unlikely form of a buddy road novel. Prompted by a Cthulhoid kachina doll housing a mysterious Artifact, Lovecraft busses to Texas to enlist the aid of his close correspondent Robert Howard. They decide to travel (in a ’31 Chevy) to visit Clark Ashton Smith in Northern California to consult Smith’s copy of the dread Necronomicon for clues about the threat posed by the enigmatic Artifact. Along the way, they rescue a fiery haired prostitute who becomes unwillingly implicated in the Cthulhuvian plot. They also, somewhat mysteriously, visit several major tourist destinations and drink a curious amount of Dr. Pepper. Odd as this all sounds, Barbour and Raleigh pull this off without getting too goofy. Mostly by telling a great story and telling it well, but also by fascinating fans of the two pulp Gods with their skills at characterization.
        Admittedly, the book can sometimes smell of hoke, but I would be quicker to blame Lovecraft, Howard, and perhaps even Dunsany than Barbour and Raleigh. If portions of the book seem overwritten to ears attuned to a sparser contemporary style, this is a tribute to Raleigh’s ability to evoke the ornate tendencies of Lovecraft’s prose. In particular, Lovecraft’s dialogue rings perfectly true to the voice so clearly evident in his fiction.
        At 300-some pages, this tome is quite a bit weightier than the typical work of its subjects. Fans of Lovecraft and Howard are in for a longer haul than they may be accustomed to. But Barbour and Raleigh will keep fans and newcomers alike flipping pages, eager to discover what the next bend in the road holds–though fearful of confronting the unearthly evil lying in wait to utterly destroy our heroes.

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