Roy wrote an excellent summary of the Sally Lockhart triliogy. I know, it isn't His Dark Materials, but they're excellent books written by Philip Pullman.
The Ruby in the Smoke: Sally Lockhart Trilogy Book 1.(1985)
It is 1872. Sally is 16, and an aristocrat, living in Victorian Islington, London. In the absence of her mother, who she can only remember through stories, she is brought up and trained by her father. When he mysteriously dies in an ‘accident’ at sea whilst supervising his shipping business, Sally sets out to discover the truth.
Along the way she makes friends with, amongst others; Jim, a boy from her solicitor’s office, and Frederick, a photographer she meets in Kent. She makes her fair share of enemies too, not least Mrs Holland, the lady owner of a very shady boarding house in Wapping.
Sally is haunted by a recurring dream, or is it a memory? When she inadvertently inhales Opium at a den in Limehouse, everything becomes clear. Apparently she has inherited a Ruby from Major Marchbanks, an old army-friend of her father’s. The story unfolds as Sally battles to uncover clue after clue, only to be thwarted at every turn by Mrs Holland and her cronies. The strange, bohemian group join forces to help Sally and in time she learns the truth about her past, her Father’s death, and the criminal gang behind it. She can’t sit idly by, so sets out to wreak a little vengeance of her own.
The Shadow in the North: Sally Lockhart Trilogy Book2.(1988)
(First published as ‘The Shadow in the Plate’ in 1986)
It is now 1878 and Sally is 22, a partner in the photography studio, with a successful financial business of her own in a man’s world. When it comes to Sally’s attention that one of her clients lost all her money in a possibly fraudulent way. Sally again sets out to discover the truth and to get her client’s money back.
This time, a tangle of psychics and conjurers lead Sally and her friends to Axel Bellman, Europe’s wealthiest man, a disgraced match maker from Scandinavia. It seems that murder and deceit have aided Mr Bellman in setting up a strange new company called North Star, but no one seems to know what it is that is produced in his self-contained factory.
A trip to the patent office and some investigating of Mr Bellman’s business affairs soon attracts his full attention onto Sally. And a slur on her reputation only strengthens her resolve to find out what is really going on. A huge new cast of characters including MacKinnon, the magician, Lord Wytham and his beautiful daughter, Lady Mary all lead Sally north to confront Bellman in his little community in Barrow.
The Tiger in the Well: Sally Lockhart Trilogy Book 3. (1991)
It is now 1881 and Sally is 25, life is good. She has her beautiful home in Twickenham and her daughter, Harriet. She has a wonderful circle of servants around her, but the men in her life are away in South America on a photography expedition. The trap is set, and Sally’s world falls out from beneath her.
A long organised plot to ruin Sally and steal her child and everything she has worked so hard to build up comes to light; a petition for divorce from Mr Parrish, a man she doesn’t even know. At every turn the marriage seems more legal, and no matter no hard she puts all her resourcefulness to the task, Sally can find no way out. The law cannot help her, so she must go into hiding in London protected by the mysterious Daniel Goldberg, a Jewish journalist and outlaw, persecuted in his native Hungary and expelled from Russia.
She learns from Goldberg of the Tzaddik and his strange dybbuk, a fabled Demon the shape of a man, but the size of a cat. The Tzaddik is grotesque, paralysed and the ringleader of a group of men that want to strip the Jewish immigrants of all of their money and dignity. He also seems to be the mastermind behind the plot against Sally, What had she done, why her?
Sally, who is not one to sit back and wait, devises a plan to prove her innocence. Telling Harriet to be brave, she leaves her with friends and gets a position in the Tzaddik’s household as a maid-of-all-work. Where she learns all she needs to know, but will she be able to pull this off? Will she even survive; will Harriet ever see her mama again?
0 comments - Add yours