It begins with a letter of rejection from Miss Celestial “Celeste” Temple’s fiancé, Roger Bascombe, delivered on her maid’s silver tray. But her quest for answers (surely nobody dumps someone by message!) takes her to the forbidding Harschmort Manor, where she finds acts of licentiousness, violence, and hedonism. But there she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a scarred assassin in red, brutal but with the soul of a poet. And Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson, at once fumbling and heroic. Both of whom, like her, having lost someone at Harschmort Manor. As the unlikely trio search for answers, they are confronted by puzzles within puzzles and danger at every turn. For the conspiracy they face—an astonishing alchemy of science, perverted religion, and lust for power, crossing borders and going high up into even the government—is so terrifying as to be beyond belief.
I started out not liking this book or its main character for maybe the first third or so. (Well, I guess the Main main character; the book is divided into ten chapters, with Celeste’s POV having four chapters including the first and last, with the remaining six divided between Chang’s and Svenson’s.) Celeste spends a chunk of the book having life happen to her, befitting the stereotypical Victorian Era-ish, upper-class English Rose she is. Though she does think that if she had a man’s strength and her father’s horse whip she would have the villains down on their knees, so meek and mild, she’s not. She unfortunately however, sometimes comes across like a woman who is old before she was ever young; she’s twenty-five, and yet speaks and acts like someone who might throw out a hip during the chase scenes. Petite, pale skinned, blonde, and just so apparently winsome and Main Character-esque that people loathe her, become fixated by her, or want to protect her. Warning: you will get a little tired of reading the phrase “cunning green boots”, because they are always “cunning green boots”. They’re not “green boots” or “cunning boots”, or even just “boots”; you’ve got to read the full thing.
Cardinal Chang is a strange, sick little delight. He wears red as an assassin, which says a lot about either his ego, or his skill level. And took the name Chang due to some old facial scarring caused people to start with the unfortunately accurate to the Fantasy Steampunk psuedo-Victorian Era this book is set in racism. The woman he’s looking for? The courtesan who won’t give him the time of day? And his reaction the first time he sees Celeste, a meeting that comprises of her in her underclothes, covered head to toe in blood?
Svenson is my least favorite of the trio. I don’t know if it’s because he’s Swedish or if it’s because he’s the oldest of the trio, but “stilted”, “old world mores and manners”, and “overly rigid in the way the world is supposed to be” are three phrases that describe him perfectly. Dahlquist has said in interviews that Svenson is the character that he dreamed up first and yet he decided to write the book from Celeste’s point of view; the way he writes Svenson I can see why he made that decision. Svenson seems like Caleb Carr’s Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, only less psychologist and more medical doctor, and even less able to talk to people.
The locales are a mixture of imaginary and real-life London landmarks; which makes the world both very familiar and horribly confusing. I couldn’t tell if this is set in an AU of our world or not. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. The writing, while very ponderous, fits the story perfectly and does evoke the emotions and scenes I think the author was going for. The world is fully fleshed out, the side characters seem like people; fantastical people, but still people. This is the first in a trilogy; and I do have to say that it maybe shouldn’t be. Is the story completely finished in this one? No, there are some loose plot strings, and the evil isn’t defeated. Is this the best book though, and does the series get worse as the books go on? In my opinion, unfortunately yes. If you want the full story I’d read all three books, but I can’t say that you might still like the characters when you’re done with them.
Full disclosure: my mother won a review copy from New York magazine back in 2006 when it was first published and that is the only copy I have ever read. It repeated an entire chapter towards the end of the book, and I don’t know if that repetition just added page numbers or replaced other text. But I pulled it off the shelf to read for the third time, which does tell you I have to like it.
