THE SHATTERED CITY

At last, a conclusion!

The fourth and final volume of the Last Magician series is finally here, and it’s another doorstopper. Most secondary characters from the second and third volumes have fallen by the wayside, leaving Viola, Jianyu, and Nibsy/James from the Bowery gang the Devil’s Own; primary leads Esta and Harte; and love interests Cela and Ruby, plus villain Jack. Time-hopping continues as Esta and Harte are transported to a changed 1983 in which the White supremacist, anti-magic Brotherhoods have only grown in power, while the rest of the gang continue in 1902, where Jack (last seen being killed in 1920) is alive and plotting. The short chapters contribute to the stop-and-go pacing. The plot is drawn out by foolish mistakes by the protagonists and padded by a lot of time spent kissing deeply, while the villains are the kind who spend pages internally gloating over their evil plots and seem unstoppable until a massive deus ex machina saves the day. What started off in the first volume, 2017’s The Last Magician, as a sharp look at issues of the past and present through an imaginative premise has petered out by this point, and the characters from marginalized backgrounds are so lacking in depth as to approach being caricatures.

For completists only.