I picked up the first book in this series – The Ashes of London – on a wander around my local Waterstones. The period is not one I am normally drawn to, and whilst it was quite good (review here), I had some reservations. However, I did decide to give the second book a chance.
Set soon after the events of the opener, this volume continues the story of James Marwood amongst the debris of a London severely damaged by the Great Fire. His father, now beset with episodes of senility, claims to have discovered a dead woman, but James thinks it is just his wandering mind. When his father dies in an accident, doubts begin to creep in.
Meanwhile, the Fire Court has been established to settle the myriad of disputes related to property destroyed in the fire. The government wants to rebuild London quickly and efficiently, without years of legal delays through the normal courts. But there are many who seek to subvert and outwit the Court, and some will do almost anything to get the decision they want.
Once again, Cat plays a significant part in the story. Still hiding as Jane Hakesby, she is bored and frustrated, but her past means that she trusts nobody. And James himself is somewhat torn by working for two government officials who are constantly trying to outdo one another. The scene is set for betrayal, murder and conspiracy.
What follows is quite a complex set of storylines. The author paces the plot well, for the most part, and there are several points at which something clicks into place. The characters are a varied bunch of different backgrounds and classes. But the whole seemed to me less that its parts.
The main problem for me was those very characters. James himself is a bit of a blank; his personality doesn’t really shine through, and he doesn’t seem to have grown since we first met him. Cat is similar; some of her actions seem driven more by plot-need than natural to her. The same applies to other characters; they are used to move the action forwards, rather than to become believable characters. Some of the new figures are mere stereotypes. This meant that at the end, I didn’t really like any of the cast, which, to me, is a recipe for disaster.
Having said all that, I did want to know what happened – who did what – and enjoyed the unravelling of the threads. Until the end, that is. The finale is just weird. I had just got that ‘end of story’ feeling, when the ending threw it all in the air again in what was for me a very unsatisfying – and unbelievable – way. It left me frustrated and with a feeling of having wasted my time; never a good feeling for an author to give a reader.
This is a review of the Harper Collins 2018 Kindle edition.
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