THE GOD OF MISCHIEF

Suspenseful—but at best, loosely connected—elements rattle around in this capacious sequel to the equally patchwork Printer’s Devil (2005). Having reunited in the first episode and shaken (or so they suppose) their persecutors, twins Nick and Mog escape 1820s London to fetch up at run-down Kniveacres Hall—where new nemeses spring up in the form of Sir Septimus Cloy, their mother’s last living relative, and his equally hostile servant Hieronymous Bonefinger. Bajoria does have a way with names, but he shovels in so many enigmatic set pieces—not one, but two instances of falling stonework, for instance—and massive coincidences, along with characters who seem to appear and vanish at will, ghostly whispers, scary dreams, vague warnings of danger, heaped bones, corpses, riddles and such that not even a deliciously revolting chase scene through a slaughterhouse late in the tale compensates for the general lack of coherence. By the end, though Cloy and Bonefinger have been dispatched, and Mog and Nick may have found a home at last, the author leaves too much unexplained to create much sense of closure. (Fantasy. 12-15)