Picture the final scene of King Kong, but replace the Empire State Building with St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and instead of a giant ape, imagine a massive writhing cephalopod.

A giant octopus is at the heart of The Adventure of the Ring of Stones, another Langdon St. Ives Adventure from the pen of James P. Blaylock.

This steampunk adventure takes the protagonist -- who, to be honest, is more of an observer than an active participant for much of the action -- and his peers from London to the Caribbean and back. The wealthy Gilbert Frobisher, acting on the dramatic written account of a nautical disaster some years earlier, takes his friends on a mission that pits them against London ruffians, vicious pirates, hungry sharks and an angry volcano -- as well as the aforementioned octopus -- in an effort to find and claim a valuable ball of ambergris from an underwater cave.

It's a rollercoaster adventure in rollicking steampunk style. The characters are well developed and entertaining, and the prose is dynamic. Just take this description from a carriage ride through the Limehouse district of London as an example:

Low lodging houses lined the road, phantom courtyards lying within a mephitic gloom, and here and there a sputtering gas-jet to enliven the night, illuminating wastes of broken tile and brick, villainous gin shops, and opium dens. A black reek poured from chimneys, the smell of it mingling with the stink of fried fish shops and the conflicting odors of the hundreds of thousands of tons of goods in the warehouses above and below ground: tobacco and spirits, sugar and molasses, tar and cordage. The entire neighborhood -- buildings, ramshackle and tilting away on either side and darkened by soot and dirt and poverty -- was colorful in a way to make Hogarth shudder.

Marvelous! You feel like you're there. Add in the photo-realistic illustrations by J.K. Potter and you have a treat of a book to enjoy.