Book Review- The Ruby in The Smoke

"On a cold, fretful afternoon in early October, 1872, a hansom cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby, Shipping Agents in the financial heart of London, and a young girl got out and paid the driver.

She was a person of sixteen or so -alone, and uncommonly pretty. She was slender and pale, and dressed in mourning, with a black bonnet under which she tucked back a straying twist of blonde hair that the wind had teased loose. She had unusually dark brown eyes for one so fair. Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man."

That opening to Philip Pullman's first Sally Lockhart adventure, The Ruby in the Smoke packed a narrative punch. As soon as I read it, questions flooded my brain. I had been scared to read this as I enjoyed the Northern Lights trilogy so much that anything without Lyra and Will in seemed pointless. I didn't see the BBC adaptation of the novel, so I went in blind, my favourite way to read a book. The story is set in Victorian London and follows the adventures of the recently orphaned Sally Lockhart, 16 and a more unconventional Victorian heroine you could not imagine. Sally is clever, good with a gun, can speak Hindustani and balance an account book as well as an accountant. Her adventure starts when she receives a mysterious message from a friend of her recently drowned father who was involved in the world of shipping. The words "the Seven Blessings" lead to a world of secrets, Chinese gangsters, opium, riddles, extreme danger and of course, the mysterious ruby in the title. Along the way Sally is befriended by a photographer and his equally unconventional sister who try to help her make sense of the mysterious dangers that surround her.
This book gripped me from the start, and I was soon thrust into Sally's world. There is a real sense of danger and menace, this is not a Victorian world of lace curtains and tea shops; villainy lurks on every corner. I can't wait to read the remaining books in the series!