This middle volume doesn’t really set up the (nearly) explosive climax to come but is replete with chases and escapes.
Young actors/spies find themselves on a new mission when the death of Queen Elizabeth sparks a Catholic plot to assassinate King James as historical characters from William Shakespeare to Francis Bacon trot into and out of view.
In one plotline, said Catholic conspirators work to recruit amnesiac archer Richard Fletcher to their cause, while in another, Richard’s thespian sister, Alice (disguised as “Adam” and believing since the previous episode that her brother is dead), is involved in a scheme of spymaster Robert Cecil’s to trick an imprisoned priest into revealing his allies. Ultimately the conspiracy is exposed—but not before events bring Richard, Alice, her friend Tom, royal political pawn Arbella Stuart, and Shakespeare himself (hard at work on Othello) together as captives who then escape in a nighttime rumpus through the Forest of Arden. Though light on period detail and also on explicit violence, the tale does move along smartly to a happy ending (for Cecil and King James anyway) and a joyful reunion for Alice and Richard. Woolf gives the all-white cast’s female characters at least minor roles in effecting their rescues, an arguably anachronistic touch, and depicts the aforementioned priest as a rousingly scary, vicious brute, which is totally in keeping with Protestant attitudes of the times. While American audiences will probably not feel the historical tensions between early-17th-century Protestants and Catholics as keenly as the book’s original English audience might, the book is nevertheless a fast-moving adventure.
This middle volume doesn’t really set up the (nearly) explosive climax to come but is replete with chases and escapes. (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-912006-95-3
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Salariya
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Clever as ever—if slow off the mark—and positively laden with tics, quirks, and puns.
When deadly minions of archvillain Ledroptha Curtain escape from prison, the talented young protégés of his twin brother, Nicholas Benedict, reunite for a new round of desperate ploys and ingenious trickery.
Stewart sets the reunion of cerebral Reynie Muldoon Perumal, hypercapable Kate Wetherall, shy scientific genius George “Sticky” Washington, and spectacularly sullen telepath Constance Contraire a few years after the previous episode, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (2009). Providing relief from the quartet’s continual internecine squabbling and self-analysis, he trucks in Tai Li, a grubby, precociously verbal 5-year-old orphan who also happens to be telepathic. (Just to even the playing field a bit, the bad guys get a telepath too.) Series fans will know to be patient in wading through all the angst, arguments, and flurries of significant nose-tapping (occasionally in unison), for when the main action does at long last get under way—the five don’t even set out from Mr. Benedict’s mansion together until more than halfway through—the Society returns to Nomansan Island (get it?), the site of their first mission, for chases, narrow squeaks, hastily revised stratagems, and heroic exploits that culminate in a characteristically byzantine whirl of climactic twists, triumphs, and revelations. Except for brown-skinned George and olive-complected, presumably Asian-descended Tai, the central cast defaults to white; Reynie’s adoptive mother is South Asian.
Clever as ever—if slow off the mark—and positively laden with tics, quirks, and puns. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-45264-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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