Another Review at MyShelf.Com

The Osiris Ritual
A Newbury and Hobbes Investigation - Book II
George Mann

Titan Books
6 November 2015 / ISBN 9781783298259
SF/Steampunk

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

 

When debonair secret agent Sir Maurice Newbury attends the unrolling of a mummy he does not know quite what he is letting himself in for. The cream of society is also at the event, but this is no ordinary mummy and it brings murder in its wake. At the same time Sir Maurice is left wondering why an agent arriving from St Petersburg by train has not turned up, while his assistant Veronica Hobbes is keen to discover why young women are vanishing after being used as part of a magician's vanishing act.

I confess that I was less than impressed with the first book in the series, finding it lacking in pace and peopled with shadowy characters it was hard to really engage with. No such problems beset book two which delivers exactly what it says on the tin and then some with style and gusto. This is the steampunk I always hope to encounter but rarely do, filled with dashing agents, thrilling chases, unearthly creatures and of course plenty of steam-driven machinery. Whether the protagonists are tussling with villains or investigating, there is always something going on, and delivered with an imagination that brings an alternative 1902 to life. I enjoyed reading about the various contraptions and how it all differed to the way it actually was and did not mind that Newbury and Hobbes remain fairly lightly sketched in. At a time when most books have plenty of angst-ridden introspection on the part of their main characters I was pleased to be reading one that is pretty much all plot driven with plenty of action. Newbury has his drugs and Veronica has her sister to worry about but neither drags down the tone or the pace. It harks back to the fiction of the age it portrays a parallel version of, a device which suits the tale very well. I can't wait to read the third installment of this series.

Reviewers Note: Some violence and gory scenes

Reviewed 2016
© MyShelf.com