The Theatre of Shadows by Christian Ellingsen

Six months have passed since the events of The Silver Mask. Over the winter months, Vasini was plagued by Gareth Miller, the Winter Fayre Killer, who murdered 17 people before he was captured by Lieutenant David Locke. The city now waits for Miller to be hanged. But when Miller escapes gaol, ready to terrorise Vasini's streets once more, Locke must hunt the murderer again to stop him from claiming more lives.

As Miller flees into Vasini's streets, Joseph Bastin, ambassador to Vasini for the city-state of Laège, is assassinated in a brothel. With the threat of political repercussions for the death, it is up to Dr. Marcus Fox, newly appointed Commandant of Police, to find the ambassador's killer.

Fox's investigation soon leads to a suspect, someone who has been investigating links between the Laège embassy and the worship of the dead deities - his ally, Dr. Elizabeth Reid.

Now, Elizabeth and her friend, Catherine, must act quickly to clear her name before she is found by someone who doesn't believe her claims of innocence and she's forced to dance the hangman's jig.

This is the sequel to The Silver Mask, a terrific "flintlock and alchemy" novel. Unfortunately, The Theatre of Shadows wasn't as enjoyable for me due to the plot style and pacing. The story read more like a police procedural set in the 1700s, which isn't the sort of thing—regardless of time period—that I read. Investigating the ambassador's murder provided enough intrigue, but the serial killer plotline kept getting in the way, hogging the spotlight. Maybe the serial killer was fully developed in The Winter Fayre, a novella contained in The Divided River that preceded this novel, but here he's rather one-dimensional. He's always two steps ahead of the Inspectorate and the watchmen (police), rendering them seemingly incompetent as he murders people with impunity. It went on for far too long for me. It took roughly three-fifths of the novel before any sort of clue was given as to why the serial killer plotline even existed, and it wasn't resolved until much later.

The main characters from The Silver Mask—Fox, Locke, Elizabeth, and Catherine—are here. While fully developed before, they weren't neglected here. Fox and Locke are in pursuit of the ambassador's assassin and the serial killer. Elizabeth and Catherine spend their time searching for clues to clear Elizabeth's name of killing the ambassador. Ellingsen gives us each main character's POV—as well as those of a few key minor characters—as they investigate, thus enriching the depth of each one.

Ellingsen doesn't spend as much time world-building here as he did in The Silver Mask, but what he provides is top-notch. The city of Vasini feels authentic with Ellingsen's descriptions of the sights and scents of everyday life.

Ultimately, the protagonists' relentless pursuit of clues paid off. Ellingsen corraled the plot into a climax that resolved the current crises of random murder and calculated assassination. It was an effective ending, and so I feel better about the book as a whole. But for me, it was probably a hundred pages too long. However, I remain optimistic that the next installment in this series will have more intrigue and less procedure.

3 stars

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Just to be clear: This book was not submitted to us. I went out and bought it on my own.

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DED

IM by Rick R. Reed (B)

A serial killer targeting gay men is on the loose in Rick R. Reed's thriller titled IM. The killer, as the title suggests, picks his victims through instant messages in gay online chat rooms. I think that this setup would have been interesting a decade ago, when the chat room scene was a novelty, but today it seems a bit quaint. Nevertheless, the writing is very strong, and the plot is handled well enough to be interesting, providing genuine twists and turns, managing to rescue the limping concept.

The first twist comes shortly after Ed Comparetto, the detective pursuing the case, gets himself fired because of a witness who apparently does not exist. Ed heads to a gay bar to take some time off to relax. A beer arrives, courtesy of a secret admirer, who turns out to be the non-existent witness. This is good plotting, and it’s a bit of a surprise to find it in a POD novel. As a result, things spin out of control, and a genuine question results—who is this witness, and why the game of hide and seek?

The heart of great plotting is the ability on the writer’s part to create suspense and tension. Reversals of expectation and surprises are at the center of this approach. IM has some interesting reversals, as when Ed calls the number of the witness, expecting to finally talk to this mysterious figure, only to get someone he does not expect, this reversal further increasing the suspense of the story. These reversals are, for the most part, interesting and genuinely add to the story suspense. At some point, however, Ed and the killer seem at a standstill, neither doing much to complicate the plans and goals of the other.

Besides the relatively good plot, the book gives us a glimpse into the gay culture: the online games, the obsessions, the loneliness, and the desperate search for love that never seems to work out. There is some gay sexual content here, so the book may not appeal all readers.

Of Blood and Blackwater by T.C. Heffernan (C)

Cover: Interesting.
Available at Amazon.com

Someone waits concealed, near a jogging trail, for his next victim. Oblivious, Sherry Coltrane runs by, the run a part of her preparation for a marathon. Without warning, she's hit by something, then, slowly, begins to lose consciousness. When she falls, the killer takes her and carries her into the woods…

The suspense starts right away, and the opening is written in a clear, smooth style that grabs your attention. The kidnapping turns out to be one of a number of similar incidents in the Portland area: someone is taking young women and doing unspeakable things to them. This is a good setup that is well executed.

Of Blood and Blackwater is a very well-written, creative, novel that stumbles because of problems with the plot.

The first problem is that the storyline about the detective and the law enforcement search for the killer does not really work because there is no obvious relationship between the investigation storyline and the Gareth storyline. We are left wondering whether this is a story about the detective looking for a killer, or a story of the college professor, Gareth who is somehow involved with the killings. Most, if not all, thrillers use multiple story lines to create suspense and tension but they do so by making the multiple story lines collide, the collision will creating problems and complications for the characters. There is nothing wrong with the two storylines in this book, of course, but they must be related somehow, must collide, and this must happen in the first third of the book—sooner even, if possible. But 100 pages through the 400+ page novel, the link between the storylines remains unclear, and, as a result, the suspense that existed earlier slacks.

Another problem lies with the presentation of the killer. In his book Along Came a Spider, Patterson makes it clear right away who the kidnapper is and what his plans are. In Blood and Blackwater, we don’t know much about the killer, his identity, motives, or goals. Suspense is always increased, in thrillers, if we know who the antagonist is and what his plans are. When we know, for instance, that the killer becomes interested in the protagonist and then targets his wife, the tension arises out of the uncertainty as to what will happen. Suppose that the detective found the dart in the very first few pages, went to Gareth, and that this became known to the killer, who would then take an interest in Gareth, and his wife. Now there would be tension and suspense because Gareth would be in danger, and the story lines would be interwoven. If the identity, plans, and motives of the antagonist are unclear, then danger that threatens the protagonist becomes diluted, and suspense and tension slacken. Of course, a writer may keep the identity of the killer a secret, but then the story becomes a mystery, and the bulk of the problem the protagonist faces is in figuring out who the killer is. You can do many things when you write a thriller, but one thing that you can't do is to have suspense and tension slacken. Which brings me to the final problem—escalation.

In Blood and Blackwater, there is no escalation for the first 150 pages. The reason for this is that there is no complication in any of the storylines that impacts the flow of the other storyline. The killer just kills and does not make a mistake. The police catch no break. Gareth does not become involved with either the killer or the detective. The storylines proceed, essentially, in parallel. They can't. Not in a thriller. Although sometimes multiple story lines are called parallel, they are not; storylines always converge and the moment of their convergence creates turbulence, complications, and problems for the characters in the story.

A good book must certainly be well edited, and Blood and Blackwater is; but a good book also must have a great deal of plot editing, which Blood and Blackwater lacks. Plot is the engine of the thriller, and a weak plot is the hallmark of an under performing book.