Decent: A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER by Roger Zelazny, 1993, 9780688125085.
Narrated by a dog who is Jack the Ripper's pal and familiar. The dog works for Jack and they are in a small town that will be the site of a possible opening to hell or some other dark side full of bad stuff. At the end of October will be a prescribed conflict between pro-hell and anti-hell sides to compete over whether the magic portal will be opened.
Dog walks and sniffs around keeping an eye on the participants and their familiars. Those participants and interlopers are obvious literary and folklore and real-life characters but are never quite named. Heck, Jack is not called the Ripper; it's just obvious. Characters include Sherlock Holmes, Rasputin, Frankenstein and monster, some werewolf, others I forgot.
The animal familiars make alliances. The animals argue and trade insults. There is humor. There is danger. I enjoyed it.
This is more likely the first Zelazny novel I ever read. I think of him as being the fantasy and scifi king of the 1980s. His books were everywhere.
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