In North America we take pride in our cities that date back to our original days of settlement and think of them as old and historic. So it's a little bit of a blow to the ego when you discover that a city like London England has sewer systems that predate even our oldest European settlements.

In other parts of the world cities older then our oldest have grown up on top of the ruins of even older settlements that exist entirely below the sub-basement levels of the newer structures. Ancient houses stand empty, vainly awaiting the return of inhabitants and streets and avenues are equally devoid of the traffic that once filled them. Forever cut off from the sun, rain, and other elements, they are the empty shells of lost civilizations.

But are they really as empty as we believe? Could it be possible that beneath our feet as we go about our daily business a whole other city carries out its affairs without our noticing? Well according to Neil Gaiman in his novel Neverwhere published by Harper Perennial, it's not a possibility but a reality. In the catacombs, sewers and abandoned subway lines that exist beneath London, England, a separate world not only exists but thrives.

Richard Mayhew is a recent immigrant whose head is still slightly spinning from his transportation to the big city from rural Scotland. It hasn't helped matters that he's been chosen for the role of fiancée and husband-to-be by a very ambitious and beautiful young women who seeks to mould him into a shape in which he is best suited to achieve what she sees as his potential.

Given those circumstances, and his overall feelings of disorientation; of not quite being in step with those around him, what happens is to only be expected. While rushing to a dinner engagement with his betrothed they stumble over an injured girl's body on the sidewalk. When she pleads for Richard not to call an ambulance he decides to take her to his apartment instead. This one compassionate act irrevocably changes his world.

Through the mysterious Lady Door, Richard is introduced to the second, and lower, strata of London life. In the short time it takes her to recuperate he learns about communicating with rats and pigeons, that mysterious passages exist between the two worlds that have no relation to time and space, and that if lower London has elements of the fantastical it also has its share of the horrible.