Product Description

Sally Lockhart's father was an unconventional man. When he dies suddenly on a voyage to the Far East, Sally receives a mysterious letter containing a strange warning. Soon Sally finds herself at the heart of a deep and dangerous mystery, one she is determined to solve at all costs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #347847 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
Set in 19th-century London, an echo of Collins' Moonstone - an orphaned 16-year-old unravels the mystery of her heritage and tracks down a fabulous Indian ruby, which has left murder and mayhem in its wake. Sally Lockhart is a competent, self-reliant heroine. She walks out on the oppressive relative who's been housing her, gets her lawyer to rearrange her investments to raise her meager income by 20 percent, and finds a new home and job with an attractive, talented, but unbusinesslike young photographer and his sister, using her precocious business acumen to rescue their floundering finances. Meanwhile, trying to decipher messages from her father, recently lost at sea in the Far East, she encounters mysterious Mr. Marchbanks, who gives her a long document, which is stolen before she can read it, and also various unsavory denizens of the East End, including villainous Mrs. Holland, who has trapped Matthew Bedwell, messenger from Lock, hart, by his addiction to opium. A whiff of opium smoke induces a vivid repetition of Sally's recurring nightmare, convincing her that it is actually memory; later, she deliberately breathes opium fumes in order to retrieve further pieces of the puzzle. After kidnappings and escapes, several murders, the finding and losing of the ruby and finding of a more moderate but useful inheritance hidden by Lockhart, everything is sorted out with surprisingly few loose ends, given the plot's many threads. An entertaining yarn, enlivened by humor and vivid characters, with the added historical interest of early photography and the evils of the opium trade. Sure to please readers of historical romances. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

Clearly Pullman's back catalogue is worth reading too
Like many readers, I first encountered Philip Pullman through the Dark Materials trilogy. Enjoying those, I went on to read some of his older books too - and I wasn't disappointed!

The Ruby In The Smoke is set in the word of Victorian penny-dreadfuls, Sax Rohmer's world of opium dens and the evil Dr Fu Manchu. Heroes are square-jawed and clean-living, villians are evil twisted crones. Everything is as it should be, and the sun never sets on the British Empire.

It's not a complex book - simple virtues of honesty and loyalty to one's friends are rewarded. In the end, good triumphs over evil - but I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the evil An Lin...

4 1/2 stars, because it's not in the superlative category of The Subtle Knife, but it's still a rollicking good read.

An atmospheric page turner
The Sally Lockhart books may not be quite as 'literary' as the His Dark Materials trilogy, but they are cracking good reads! If, like me, you are a sucker for the seamier side of Victorian London, you will love the menacing atmosphere of gaslit Bloomsbury and dark and dangerous docklands. The plot is complex and gripping - I would have preferred to read this at one sitting, but being an honest sort, I took it to work and read snatches in my breaks, rather than taking a sickie. What I really love about Pullman is that he is not afraid to place his child characters in 'unsuitable' situations; they fall in love, see drug use, kill in self defence, and generally behave like real people instead of conforming to the saccharine stereotype which used to enrage me as a child.

Could it get any better.
I read this on the back of reading the Dark Materials trilogy and after them I thought there could be no better, especially not the ruby in the smoke. Yet from the first page to the last I was completely wrong.
The new cast of characters are interesting, the fact that it is rather more realistic (apart from Will's world) than the his dark materials trilogy makes it all the better.The plot always makes a twist which you don't expect, many are unhappy but that what makes the book what it is. Its those qualities which means you cant put it down and that your constantly on the edge of your seat.
It's by far the best Pullman book I've read (i've yet to read the other three Sally Lockhart books) and it provides a good introduction to all the characters. Move over Harry Potter, Sally Lockhart's in town.