Traveling on fromThe Deluxe Transitive VampireandTorn Wings and Faux Pas(chosen by theLos Angeles Times Book Reviewas one of the best books of 1997), Karen Elizabeth Gordon continues her wildly imaginative romp withOut of the Loud Hound of Darknessthrough a gothic landscape of language and her mythically Balkan world, a howling terrain and a cast of rampageous, eerie characters. Myriad underground passages harbor mementos of horrific history, as the young dragons and au pair discover in their explorations. Through this spellbinding narrative, with its brigands, coiffeur, Count Ghastly, moguls, alchemical queen, courtesan, contrary cartographer, and cross-dressing cowboys, Gordon illuminates the mysteries of usage, speeding the reader to expertise with such confusions as decry/descry, fatal/fateful, displace/misplace, precipitate/precipitous, and masterful/masterly. A companion lexicon, which includes anomie, farouche, quidnunc, internecine, obloquy, fatidic, and noetic, continues the tales and intrepid trek, all the while treating war, power, and celebrity cults with satirical wit and insight. WithOut of the Loud Hound of DarknessGordon lures you into the intricacies and pleasures of language through a brooding, hilarious fabric of fiction.