THE LAW OF SOLITUDE

Having left his beloved and magically talented sister, Wren, in the clutches of a mad sorcerer, Tell returns to the dangerous city of Halfway in desperate hope of mounting a rescue.

In this trilogy closer, Peckham has assembled a redoubtable, largely white-presenting cast in which it’s the girl characters who stand out, notably the wraith Desert, a nightmarishly unstable villain with an army of weird, blank-faced rag dolls and world-shattering intentions. The stubbornly loyal Tell and Seka, his father (who “lost his sight to a shard of black glass” but has learned from the sorcerer Sicatrice “to see in other ways”) have chances to shine as they join allies from both the town and their remote mountain village in driving events toward a climactic face-off with the deranged Desert while mounting a second effort to wrest Halfway back from brutal invaders. For all the threatening talk and terrifying situations, there’s very little explicit bloodshed, and more alert readers may even spot a few moments of comic relief in a tale that has been so far characterized by dark doings and harsh sacrifices. By the end, several budding relationships have firmed up, just deserts have been served up to the deserving, and though the author neatly wraps up his major plot strings he leaves enough dangling to suggest a willingness to carry on.

Ends on a rising tide, though the scary villain may well continue to haunt readers’ dreams.