In this, the second of the Victorian series Pullman has writen we see Sally Lockhart thrust into a world of politics, love and war. She learns about the secrets of the aristocracy, the genocidal plans of the Tsar and how the richest man in Europe: Axel Bellmann has killed and hidden his way to success. She must take her place as the story's protagonist and stop his weapon from reaching completion. Things soon get personal when Bellmann knows her name and seeks to stop her.
The book combines love, hate, revenge and sheer wit. We see how Pullman takes Victorian society and unvails the darker side to it. He provides the reader with a book in which one has to think as well as read. As you go through the pages, the case becomes clears; you feel as if you were there at Scotland Yard trying to figure the whole thing out. Trawling through Patents and past news articles.
Pullman cleverly adds the side plots of a mysterous man who seems to have a history of different woman, however his current love seems to be the daughter of a well known aristocrat. The book advances with the love triangles between the heros and their suspects. Pullman contines to weave a series of different events, past fashbacks and memories until we see the culminated together at the end.
He continues from The Ruby in the Smoke, and allows The Shadow of the North to give birth to a new story. At the end when the story is thought to be over, he delievers his bombshell proving its is nothing more than a calm before yet another storm.
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