This is the eighth outing for Ethan Gage that energetic Eighteenth Century rogue. While I have enjoyed most of the books in the series, once again I had the feeling that the the wind is leaving Ethan’s sails. This title is much slower and more serious than its predecessors. Ethan does not sparkle. He worries a lot. The word ‘again’ refers to ‘The Emerald Storm’ (2012) which seemed more a forced march than a romp.
Moreover, the narrative is divided between Ethan and Astiza, his wife, and she is even more serious than Ethan has become because she worries about their son Horus (Harry) who also has some chapters, consisting chiefly of him worrying about his mother. There is a lot of worrying. These three worry enough to be Op-Ed writers, that professional worrying class.
The technique of alternating chapters with the voices of Ethan, Astiza, and Horus slows the pace a lot. And it is distracting. Especially Horus, the eight year old whose range is, well, that of an eight year old.
On the other hand there are vivid characterisations of the many individuals and the places that Ethan meets and traverses but once again it was too much, St. Petersburg and the Russian court, Poland and a revanchist noble, Istanbul and the the harem in the Topkapi. Indigestion, I cried. All of this name and place dropping is not a substitute for élan, spirit, movement, and fun.
Yet for all the movement there is none of the pace that I have so enjoyed in some of his earlier titles in this series. In these pages the movement is punctuated by long periods of rest and relaxation. and, of course, worry.
One character drops out of the story half any through, namely the Russian prince, whom I keep expecting to re-appear, as others do in this novel and have in the others in the series, else why have him in the first place. Answer: a plot device.
It is peopled with some truly malign villains, von Bonin and Count Dalca. Neither one is a quitter, that is for sure.
The eight Ethan Gage novels.
1 Napoleon’s Pyramids (2007)
2 The Rosetta Key (2008)
3 The Dakota Cipher (2009)
4 The Barbary Pirates (2010)
5 The Emerald Storm (2012)
6 The Barbed Crown (2013)
7 The Three Emperors (2014)
8 The Trojan Icon (2015)
I found ‘The Emerald Storm,’ despite its exotic setting, to be forced as I found this title to be. I read this one on the Kindle. I do hope the author consults Alfred E. Neuman before he writes the next one follows Neuman’s timeless advice ‘What, me worry?’
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