The Madness Underneath (Shades of London #2), by Maureen Johnson
Actual rating: 3.5 stars
Cover Story: Water Damage
This blurry cover makes me want to blink my eyes and bring it into focus. I think it is supposed to look ghostly, but instead it looks like it’s been dropped in a puddle and melted.
First Line: “Back at Wexford, where I went to school before all of this happened to me, they made me play hockey every day.” (I chose this first line from the first chapter after the prologue, because the prologue is one of those bait-and-switch deals that exist for no other reason than to set up a scene later in the novel in which the main characters discover something you already know isn’t that important.)
The Deal: Rory is suffering from mild PTSD after defeating the copycat ghost of Jack the Ripper in the first book. In between bullshitting her therapist and reassuring her parents, Rory is doing her best to adjust to a life where she can not only see ghosts, but explode them with her touch. But she misses Wexford, the boarding school where it all happened, and she misses the Shades, the secret ghost-busting police unit, so when offered, she jumps at the chance to return to both. Reintegrating into her former life isn’t at all easy, though: there’s another string of ghost-related deaths to obsess over, and she’s about to be kicked out of Wexford for failing grades. What’s a human terminus to do?
Style & Substance: The premise of the first book, Shades of London, hinged on the concept of the Jack the Ripper killings happening in the present day. That’s why I picked it up in the first place. This middle book doesn’t have anything so novel or high profile. It sets up new cult-ish villains that will clearly return in the third book but doesn’t connect with the major storyline in the first, aside from the ghost-busting angle. It feels like the first book could have been a stand-alone if the ending had been a little more tied-up, while this second book is actually starting up the series with a recurring villain and story arc. Maybe what I’m trying to say is that this series is turning out more procedural than I thought it would be, rather than one seamless story told over three books.
Plot-wise, this book doesn’t do much. It sets up the new Big Bad (the aforementioned cult) and teases the upcoming conflict, and then ends with a giant cliffhanger. (This caused me to write, “Dumb cliffhangers, I hate you” in my notes.) The story barely started before it was over. I thought the main villain was way too obvious, so the reveal lacked impact and made me doubt Rory’s intelligence. Also, the way the terminus works (the ghost-busting device that Rory can now do without) is still unclear; the general mythology of ghosts and secret police in contemporary London isn’t clearly developed. It’s just there on the surface to tell a cool story.
Character-wise, however, this book is as fantastic as the first one. Rory’s voice - her easy-breezy talky narrative, her crazy Southern tall tales, her odd humor - is what keeps me most interested in this series. Her personal problems make up the bulk of this story: her need to talk about what happened but unable to find someone to trust; her dawning sense of failure over her studies at Wexford; her confusion over dating a guy she’s attracted to but doesn’t really feel connected to; her struggles to accept her new power, etc. Like the first one, there are some really funny bits in here, too. Again, though, while Johnson does a great job developing Rory, the other characters don’t get much to do, even Stephen, who spends most of his time shepherding Rory around and arguing with her about safety and responsibility.
You Should Read This: If you liked Shades of London, the first one (duh). If you like ghost-busting goodness. If you like secret supernatural police units. If you like boarding school stories. If you like funny characters.
Also Read: Clarity and Perception, by Kim Harrington, for paranormal teen sleuthiness. Heist Society, by Ally Carter, and Bad Kitty, by Michelle Jaffe (neither of these are paranormal but the humorous narrative and mystery focus is similar). Midnight Riot and the other Rivers of London books by Ben Aaronovitch, for its Britishy paranormal police procedural.
Also Watch: No idea. Medium? Ghostbusters?
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read the eARC.