finally, i finish the trilogy of sally lockhart! our precocious girl heroine is a woman now, with a daughter, a flourishing business, a happy household, and a whole new tangled mess of problems. for me, this was the book where sally became a whole person. she has actual inadequacies! shortcomings! someone doesn't show up to save her at the last minute in improbable ways every time she's in trouble. she's a real adult, and this means that sometimes terrible things happen, there's no resolution, and then.... another terrible thing happens! lest you think pullman gets dark and avenges some wrath on poor sally, everything comes around neatly in the end. Sally seizes every opportunity to fall in with socialists and revolutionaries, to see firsthand the inequalities of the class system, to experience the fruits of hard work towards social justice, and to learn all about the evils of capitalism. it was a little overt for my tastes. maybe i like my political diatribes dripping with metaphors and cloaked in allegories, but i will give leeway for the fact that it IS technically Young Adult Fiction and sometimes you have to be a little more obvious for the kids. halfway through, though, i felt like i was being lectured, "Capitalism is Evil and I Am Part of It. But I Am Learning And I Can Change. We All Can." okay! should i go burn down a walmart or something? geez. sometimes i have this issue with great heroines, you know, where i can't tell if i want to fuck them, mother them, fight them, or be them. i have a lot of feelings, okay? but, finally i was clear on my emotions here - i really want to drink whisky with sally lockhart! in the first book i thought i probably wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and tell her to just be a kid for a minute. in the second book, i wished i could be a historical fiction character so that we could get a little 'tipping the velvet' action going. now, though, my feelings are resolved, finally, and i am filled with great relief at the resolution of this tension. unfortunately, i am a psychic genius with some serious kind of magical ability to see in the future, and i was able to spot the Final Twist from about 300 pages away, but maybe you will have the good fortune to be avoid this foresight.
Meeehhhhh, Sally's second book was good, and this one...was not. Okay, I was still digging the setting of Victorian London. Sally, I was just at the Assyrian exhibit at the British Museum! I walked along Fleet Street. I can totally picture every single place we were hanging out. But omigosh, I cannot tell you how frustrating every other part of this book was. One, Sally is back to annoying me. Two, everybody that I liked, like Jim, is not in the book (until the end, when he, of course, saves the day). Three, Sally! Why are you so stupid? Your solicitor so obviously sucks and I can't believe you put up with his crap. You're supposed to be too much of a badass chick to deal with his incompetence. Also, why did it take you so long to realize who was behind everything? I mean, it was implied that you kind of knew, but just took you FOREVER to deal with it, but I'm not buying that. Again, badass chick. And four, why is everybody else so stupid? Sally cut and dyed her hair, people, she didn't change her entire face. Really, bad guys? You don't recognize her when she shows up at your house to work as a maid? *Slaps hand to forehead*(Just realized points one and three are...kind of the same thing. But she's so stupid and annoying in this book that it probably warrants two separate points.)In the end, Sally ends up with a sexy, smart political leader, who I kind of dig, but I still miss Fred :(
What do You think about The Tiger In The Well (1992)?
A bit longer and more dense than The Shadow in the North, but excellent all the same.Sally has her own business, is living communally with her created family, has her daughter from Frederick (god rest his soul), and then her husband shows up. Well, he doesn't show up so much as serve her with divorce papers for being a trampy drunk who abandoned him and treats their servants like dirt.Only Sally has no husband.On top of that there are social inequities to dissolve: rioting, racism, anti-Semitism, a rough and tumble gang of street toughs who make great daycare providers, a lot of fighting, a weird guy in a wheelchair who no one seems to know who he is or where he came from, a deranged monkey, slum lords, a collapsing house, piracy at sea, bribery, pedophilia ( only in mentioning and accusing), and a lovely side of beef named Daniel Goldberg.This was quite the story with a plot line that could probably be shot off into 4 or 5 more books.And it ends with a hearty kiss and a little girl exclaiming: Not bloody likely.
—Pierced Librarian
I love Sally Lockheart and blew through all these books when I was younger but Tiger in the Well is a bit different than the first two. It was Ok but not fantastic. The plot and mystery and Pullman contributing his own political ideas into the series keeps this one likable and interesting but it just feels like it's missing some of the charisma of the first two books possibly because it takes place so long after them.If you already read and like the Sally Lockheart books then this one is along the same vein and is another opportunity for Lockheart mystery, just don't let this be the first one you pick up.
—Laura
Sally Lockhart is a rare woman in Victorian England. She’s a single mother, competent, independent, and a successful and prosperous business owner. She has never been married, so when she is served with divorce papers, she cannot understand how such a mistake could be made. It soon becomes clear it is not a mistake. The details about her in the document are correct -- all except one. She has never met the man claiming to be her husband, the man who wants to take custody of her daughter.I would not have labeled this a YA book. There is nothing juvenile about it. It is a suspenseful Dickensian story of vengeance, greed, cruelty, and corruption, which vividly captures the social conflicts of the time. The images of Victorian London are detailed and clear. The contrasts between rich and poor, worker and owner are sharp. The only YA aspect may be a carryover from the first book in the series, The Ruby in the Smoke, in which Sally is first introduced as a 16-year-old orphan. I didn’t see that book as specifically YA either, though.My only criticism, and it’s not a strong one, is that I thought Sally should have been a bit quicker on the uptake in identifying the real force behind her troubles. I figured it out long before she did, but then I, as a reader, understand this is a novel and therefore must make sense. Real life, of course, is not like that.I highly recommend this book to all readers, especially those fond of Victorian mysteries. It’s a great story.
—D.L. Morrese
