I've come to realise that when you read a Ross MacKenzie book, you're guaranteed two things. Sumptuous, exquisite use of language and fast-paced action that never meanders. Both are in abundance in the follow-up to 2015's excellent 'The Nowhere Emporium'. Mackenzie squeezes so much into this 256-page tale than some writers manage in 400.
Favourites Daniel and Ellie are back, along with Caleb and Anja, together with a host of intriguing supporting characters, including several from the mystical Bureau of Magical Investigation and a resourceful Iron Ringmaster, as the Emporium, beyond the velvet red curtain is now a hustling bustling carnival showpiece with a wonderfully imaginative Iron circus.
The prologue sets the scene, taking us back to London in 1967 revealing several of the Bureau of Magical Investigation's former agents have been shockingly murdered. The story then proceeds to artfully weave a dual timeline narrative with the present day. Even more satisfying toward the finale when these timelines later intersect. The Nowhere Emporium appears in modern-day Keswick with Daniel a little unsure of himself, naturally, following in the footsteps of the prodigious yet unabashed Lucien Silva. Here we meet Edna, a huge admirer of the Emporium and it would seem, Daniel, who loses her way while being hoodwinked by a mysterious voice within the carnival. This voice, posing as her grandfather in fact belongs to the cunning, malevolent Shade Walker, able to manipulate shadows at will, which she unwittingly releases from a portal within an enchanted mirror, taking residency inside the ill-fated Edna. The story has you hooked immediately creating tremendous tension and excitement. When Daniel and Ellie, always providing a reassuring, steadying influence on him return from the local magic district (think Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter series) they are aghast to find the Nowhere Emporium stolen. Of course, the handiwork of Edna, controlled by the malicious Shade Walker.
As a reader, my first thoughts understandably returned to Vindictus Sharpe, is he behind all this? Is he really gone? Daniel and Ellie understood that Sharpe somehow tracked the Emporium. If he can do it, so can they. At a delightfully frantic pace, the pair turn to Mort Folio of Folio and Sons books. After a visit from the distressed Beth, Edna’s mother, Mort gives them a lead to visit the enigmatic and powerful, Peg. She lives on a bewitched Island with her less than friendly invisible assistant amid the lakes. Trouble is, they aren’t keen on visitors and our heroes wind up tangled in enchanted tree branches. Rather than ending up at the bottom of her well, the pair are gifted a magic carpet to fly to Edinburgh with a miraculous candle after Peg warms to them. She is a former colleague and friend of Lucien.
A third layer of the narrative is cleverly weaved with Edna battling her inner demon (whilst turning Caleb and Anja to stone no less, flashbacks to the bureau in 1967 London, and our heroes now in Edinburgh visiting the Clockmaker Arthur, Peg’s brother. Arthur then burns the magic candle and opens a portal back to the Emporium. I felt the re-discovery of the shop a little convenient, which would be my only doubt in the story. Meanwhile, the shade walker inside Edna resolves to build strength, searching for the spellbinding fountain, the true source of the emporiums magic.
Our three investigators in the 1967 timeline, Mr Ivy, Flintwich and the amusing yet deceased Mrs Hennypeck continue to battle with the same dangerous force as Daniel and Ellie must deal with in the present day. Flintwich is able to wound the Shade Walker with a hazel wand but is seemingly mortally wounded, then saved from the brink by the excellent Agatha Wimple former Bureau chief, now residing within a painting on the wall. This was a mesmerizing part of the book with wonderfully crafted tension. It is at that time the bureau contacts Lucien Silver for his help in cleverly banishing the Shade Walker, deceiving it with a fake fountain with the aid of his magical silver birds into the mirror portal later to be released by Edna.
In the present-day timeline, the supremely dangerous Shade Walker, manipulating the shadows of their owners, continues to hunt Mr Ivy who is killed then Mrs Hennypeck, in search of revenge and her necklace, the source of her own strength. With that, the Shade Walker is then able to take human form, revealed to be Bob Needle of the infamous ‘Needle Incident,’ furious his colleagues left him behind. The timelines intersect when Daniel and Ellie are led to Mr Ivy’s home, sadly too late, where they meet Flintwich, now bureau chief investigator.
An ingenious part of the writing for me is where the 1967 Shade Walker is looking for the fountain inside the emporium pursued by Silver, at the same time as the modern-day Shade Walker is pursued by Daniel, Elllie, and Flintwich. The final battle includes a wonderfully creative, giant shadow fight, absorbing and fascinating. Daniels master plan of transporting the Emporium to Keswick works, and with the aid of savvy, comical yet powerful Peg, Bob Needle’s ghost is freed, the wicked spirit defeated and dispelled to another world beneath the well. Edna remains with Peg to be her assistant, Ellie follows her dreams into the world to work with Flintwich at the Bureau, and Daniel, now surer of himself is left to work his wonders within the fabulous, magical Emporium.
I can’t wait to read the third installment, due out later this year. If anything like the first two, it will formidable. I can’t help thinking that the idea of Ellie and Flintwich’s adventures with the bureau would lend themselves to a compelling spin-off!