The House That Jack Built

The House That Jack Built is, as you might manage to guess from the title, about a house built by Captain Jack Harkness. Except, it's no ordinary house: it's the place where some sort of time-travelling, paradox-eating, other-dimensional alien entity-thingies have set up shop and retroactively altered the timeline to make the house into an always-has-been site of horror and murder. As with a lot of Torchwood books, the ultimate cause of whatever is happening (aliens! aliens! aliens!) is usually secondary to the happening itself--in this case, the Poltergeist/Shining experiences of a new couple moving into the house. The author, Guy Adams, has a great grasp on the characters, a unique style of intercutting scenes so they pick up a little before the end of the previous scene (but from a different perspective), and a penchant for creating creepy goings-on. My favorite part of the book was the introduction of a new character, Alexander Martin, a stranded alien whom Jack recruits to be the fill-in doctor since Owen bit it. Alexander is a rascible, louche old man with an eye for the ladies--in other words, he's what Jack would be like if Jack were 80 years old and cranky. Suffice it to say, Alexander is a great character whom I would love to see again. Bottom line: another strong entry in the Torchwood series of novels.