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Richard Mayhew, an ordinary young Scottish man, takes up a new job in London as an investment analyst, and leads an uneventful but largely satisfying life. He has an apartment, a rich and beautiful (albeit controlling) fiancée, a steady job, and supportive colleagues. He is engaged to Jessica whose physical attractiveness seems to him sufficient compensation for her snobbery. All this changed one day when Richard stopped to help an injured girl while he and Jessica were on their way to an important dinner appointment with Jessica’s boss.

Neverwhere is the story of Richard’s abrupt displacement from the safe world of London Above and rude descent into the violent world of London Below (where the injured girl, Door, lived). What lends this Tale of Two Londons its mesmerizing magic is Gaiman’s brilliant construction of an alternate underground world that is inhabited by individuals who have fallen through the cracks, crazed assassins, fake angels, a mythical beast, black friars, an Earl and other historical personages. It has a reversed hierarchy in which rats are king and humans, merely rat-speakers (literally people who speak to rats). On account of his'contamination' by Door, the last surviving member of the royal Portico family, who has two assassins on her trail, Richard is cut off from life in London Above.

London Below is a weirdly vibrant but concurrently repulsive community where life centers round the Floating Market in which one can purchase fresh dreams, the worst nightmares, garbage, crap, and offal, etc. It is a terrifying place when night falls because a person relives all his nightmares. Richard’s life becomes entangled with Door, a waif-like girl who is seeking vengeance for her murdered family; Hunter, a lady warrior-huntress who is Door’s bodyguard with a secret ambition to slay the Beast of London; the Marquis de Carabas, a shady character who owes Door’s family a debt. London Below mirrors London Above but evil is cranked up many notches because angels and beasts alike fight for eminence and power, and are bent on wreaking destruction on everything and anyone who stands in the way. In London Below, marginalized people like Anaesthesia, the girl who first guided Richard through the underground tunnels, disappear without a trace and no one cares. I felt a pang for her loss. There is sufficient intrigue and cruelty to make the reader wince. All the time, I hoped Richard could reclaim his life in London Above. Richard longs so much to return home to his job and his flat, or so he thinks. Door’s fate and Richard’s predicament kept me turning pages.

Readers who have knowledge of London, its rich history, and a love of underground train stations are likely to enjoy this fantastical tale. I have to say I found this fantasy dark and unnerving. The characters who seem to me most convincing are Croup and Vandemar, assassins who enjoy hurting people and eating their liver. They also have a wicked, slapstick humor. I did not get a sense that there was much by way of character development. Door remained simply the lonely girl with opal-colored eyes although Richard found new courage through the dangers he weathered in London Below. To his credit, his kindness never left him.

Gaiman said, "What I wanted to do was to write a book that would do for adults what the books I had loved when younger, books like Alice in Wonderland, or the Narnia books, or The Wizard of Oz, did for me as a kid. And I wanted to talk about the people who fall through the cracks, to talk about the dispossessed - using the mirror of fantasy.� Read Neverwhere if fantasy is your cup of tea.