"Fraud, fire, and bloody murder pursue Sally Lockhart in a fine sequel to The Ruby in the Smoke. Sally, now 22, is in business as a financial consultant. When she and her friends challenge corrupt financial interests, they find themselves in a web of intrigue that stretches from fetid slums of the poor to the corporate offices of the richest man in Europe. Sally's detective work reveals the connections between corrupt power and broken lives. The action is fast, scenes are tight and dramatic, the language is vivid, and the wealth of minor characters are sharply individualized. An immensely entertaining thriller."—(starred) Booklist. Reading level: 6.7.
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Awards
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Release date
November 23, 2004 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780739353738
- File size: 258061 KB
- Duration: 08:57:37
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- Text Difficulty: 7-12
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Reviews
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AudioFile Magazine
Sally Lockhart is a financial consultant in London in 1878--a highly unconventional single girl in Victorian times. When a client loses her life savings because a shipping company collapses, Sally investigates. This is a quirky mystery involving a Scottish magician who has "sensed" a murder, a frightening new gun developed by a power-hungry Swede, and a sweet romance with Fred, a photographer/detective. Anton Lesser's sense of character is peerless. He creates a slightly softer voice for Sally, a wonderful Scottish accent for the magician, and a range of class accents for the various members of Fred and Sally's circle. Lesser delivers a spellbinding performance that intensifies the suspense and makes the villain more menacing. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2005 YALSA Selection (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine -
Publisher's Weekly
September 1, 1989
This comical adventure about a girl who longs to follow in her father's footsteps crackles with Pullman's (The Golden Compass; Clockwork) usual flair. Lila desperately wants to be a firework-maker like her widower father. Although he has raised her amid the dancing sparks, he wants her to have a husband rather than a vocation. With the help of her entrepreneurial friend Chulak, the personal servant to the king's talking white elephant, Lila tricks her father into revealing the secret to his profession, then bravely departs to retrieve the royal sulphur from Razvani the Fire-Fiend at the heart of a volcano. Pullman marries elements of fairy tale with slapstick humor as Lila outwits a vaudevillian band of pirates and scales jagged mountains on her quest. Gallagher's (Blue Willow, reviewed above) softly focused graphite drawings lend magical mystery as Lila fearfully contemplates the dancing fire imps at Mount Merapi and emphasize the absurdity as the elephant, his flanks emblazoned with advertisements, kneels before the Goddess of the Lake in order to save Lila from Razvani. If the tale, first published in Britain in 1995, isn't as polished as Pullman's other works, it's worth the trip just for the climactic fireworks scene in which Lila gets to show her stuff. Ages 8-12. (Oct.) FYI: As of September, Pullman's Sally Lockhart Trilogy is being reissued in paperback: The Ruby in the Smoke; The Shadow in the North; and The Tiger in the Well; as well as The Tin Princess, which features characters from the trilogy.
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Formats
- OverDrive Listen audiobook
Languages
- English
Levels
- Text Difficulty:7-12
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