The Tiger in the Well

October 1, 1990
This sequel to The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North combines heart-thumping suspense, a thorough-going examination of Victorian London's underclass, a lively gang of heroes and villains and a mystery sinister enough to leave readers filled with anxiety. An unknown evildoer has made elaborate plans to steal Sally Lockhart's life away from her--by usurping her home, her business, her daughter Harriet and, finally, her sanity. Elsewhere in London, Jewish immigrants who have fled the Russian pogroms are being systematically fleeced. Daniel Goldberg, a socialist journalist, believes that the evil genius behind these brutal acts is a shadowy figure known as the Tzaddik. Rendered homeless and hounded through London's slums, Sally endures a plight that in many ways mirrors the mistreatment of the Jews. Aided by Goldberg and a handful of the city's toughest gangsters, the dauntless heroine triumphs over this malevolence. Astute readers are likely to figure out the Tzaddik's identity long before Sally does--a bit of predictability that is at odds with Pullman's otherwise tight plotting. On the whole, however, this thought-provoking romp is as rich and captivating as a modern-day Dickens novel. Ages 12-up.

February 3, 1992
This comical adventure about a girl who longs to follow in her father's footsteps crackles with Pullman's (The Golden Compass; Clockwork) usual flair. Lila desperately wants to be a firework-maker like her widower father. Although he has raised her amid the dancing sparks, he wants her to have a husband rather than a vocation. With the help of her entrepreneurial friend Chulak, the personal servant to the king's talking white elephant, Lila tricks her father into revealing the secret to his profession, then bravely departs to retrieve the royal sulphur from Razvani the Fire-Fiend at the heart of a volcano. Pullman marries elements of fairy tale with slapstick humor as Lila outwits a vaudevillian band of pirates and scales jagged mountains on her quest. Gallagher's (Blue Willow, reviewed above) softly focused graphite drawings lend magical mystery as Lila fearfully contemplates the dancing fire imps at Mount Merapi and emphasize the absurdity as the elephant, his flanks emblazoned with advertisements, kneels before the Goddess of the Lake in order to save Lila from Razvani. If the tale, first published in Britain in 1995, isn't as polished as Pullman's other works, it's worth the trip just for the climactic fireworks scene in which Lila gets to show her stuff. Ages 8-12. (Oct.) FYI: As of September, Pullman's Sally Lockhart Trilogy is being reissued in paperback: The Ruby in the Smoke; The Shadow in the North; and The Tiger in the Well; as well as The Tin Princess, which features characters from the trilogy.