From the Library of Jurgen Leitner
by Premee Mohamed (with Jonathan Sims)
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted November 8, 2026
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"What was the point of a book, if not to change its reader?"
Premee Mohamed's latest novel is a prequel to stories created and written by Jonathan Sims. I'm not sure how much Sims contributed to this book. It is not clear, so maybe more like "based on, or inspired by the work of…" I rarely listen to podcasts, and had never heard of The Magnus Archives, a weekly horror fiction podcast from the UK that began in 2016, with a total of 200 episodes over five seasons. That link is to Wikipedia, but links for the podcast episodes are at the bottom of this page. I didn't read too far on Wikipedia so I might be wrong, but I think the only character in this novel who is also in the podcast is Jurgen Leitner, but only the first two seasons. Being a library, Leitner's collection is books. Cursed books. Leitner claimed he was keeping the world safe from the powers inherent in the books, but another character thinks it is the collecting that is most important to Leitner, the ownership. They thought Leitner didn't understand all of the books' powers, how they came to be that way, or how to control them, how to use them properly. Maybe he did, but kept that information to himself. Consider this somewhat like Scott Hawkins' The Library at Mount Char, mixed with TV's "Friday the 13th: The Series" or "Warehouse 13," with some of the flavor of There is No Anti-Memetics Division.
In addition to the library, Leitner had offices on Pall Mall in London, where he met with other book collectors to buy books to test, or to sell those tested and proven(?) to be non-cursed. The prologue is set there in September 1986, when the secretary Louise (no surname mentioned) becomes a casualty of a book that has to be moved to the library. Chapter 1 skips to July, 1992, and is set in the library, introducing Hugh Franklin, who works as a translator and tester of books. Chapter 2 begins a different sequence of events, starting in October 1993 in Switzerland, where Sebastian Everett (Hugh's replacement) meets with a woman, the "Countess," to acquire a book for Leitner. Afterward, the chapters alternate between the two timelines, up to the point Hugh is fired for stealing a book and trying to destroy it. Leitner didn't care to listen to anything Hugh had to say, but his defense was that the book was haunting him. It was a spiral-bound notebook, not a published book, with the misspelled title "FAVOURIT RECIPES" hand-written in black marker. In attempting to figure out any power the notebook had, all Hugh got back were cyphers, which when decoded seemed to be directed at him personally. Other characters come and go, either fired, moved to a mental hospital, or killed by exposure to the wrong book. Leitner had told Hugh that the only direct effect a book could have on a person was psychological, yet there had been fires, explosions, or inexplicable disappearances.
Sebastian is the one I referenced in the first paragraph, the man who thought he knew better than Leitner how the books should be used. He was influenced to apply for the job by someone else, a seedy, homeless-looking man named Cobb, who was apparently infested with a nest of spiders, which others could see crawling all over him, while he was either unaware or unconcerned. Thereafter, Sebastian has to keep his personal agenda hidden from Leitner, who he despises, or at least pities, for not realizing how to use the books for maximum personal power and wealth. A lot of what Sebastian does is to promote his own agenda, become the owner of the books and the library, while not realizing it is Cobb who is actually pulling the strings. The only other character I will mention is someone I initially thought was sympathetic, someone Hugh felt was his only friend, and not just at the library. Later it seems she is only concerned with herself. Charlotte (call me Chuck) Varma was Leitner's administrative assistant at the library. She never dealt with the books themselves, was never a tester, she just kept the financial books. Whenever disaster befell someone else, she might not have said it, but it was easy to believe she was thinking, "Well, no book has eaten me yet, so I'm good."
In addition to the danger from the books, the house and adjacent buildings that make up the library appear to be less than permanent in shape and form. Characters get confused walking down corridors, or going up or down stairs, either ending up somewhere different than where they intended to go, or getting lost altogether. Extra doors or windows appear and disappear without reason. Not sure if that had happened before, but maybe only after Sebastian implemented some of the plans suggested by Cobb. Probably so, since Leitner is affected by them too, and he was the architect behind everything. As mentioned above, Leitner reappears in the podcast, and Chuck escaped the danger by not being there when the major damage occurred. None of the chapters are titled, with only a location and date, but if they did have titles, the last chapter before the Epilogue could have been "The Fall of the House of Leitner." But the Pall Mall office was still intact, and that is where Leitner is in the podcast.
This is not my favorite of Premee's books, but I still liked it a lot and can recommend it. It it tense and spooky, with interesting characters, even those I came to dislike. It doesn't mean I will ever bother with the podcasts, which I don't care for due to the same reason I rarely listen to audio books. I don't process audio-only very well, except for music. I prefer print on a page or e-ink on my Kindle. For anyone else interested in podcasts, I link to them below, including the sequel series "The Magnus Protocol," which is set more than 20 years after the end of "Archives." Sims is involved with that too, just not the main writer. That is still ongoing, with the most recent episode, #59, having been added just three days ago. There will be another novel published next year, but written by someone else. If you read this book and like it, or listen to any of the podcasts, and are interested in Work Your Finger to the Bone (The Magnus Protocol) by Christopher Ruz, it can be pre-ordered from Bookshop or Amazon. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission.
Related links:
All episodes of The Magnus Archives and The Magnus Protocol are available on their own dedicated websites, but also from most other podcast providers.
The Magnus Archives Wiki
A list of all of my Premee Mohamed reviews.
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