Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours they’re wielders of actual magic. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. The protagonist of Bardugo’s ( King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story. Best of all, the relentless intrigues, plots, and schemes bubble just below the surface.Ībercrombie brings his compact, adroit, and engaging trilogy to a satisfying, if seldom memorable, conclusion. The narrative, well-sprinkled with gory action and impelled by characters at this stage not just familiar, but gratifying, moves along at a brisk clip.
And Skara may find herself at odds with that master of deception, Yarvi himself. They will come to suspect a traitor in their midst. The allies will need elf-weapons, hidden and deadly dangerous, designed to kill a god. Even such a daring assault won’t be enough, though, to prevail against the vast armies commanded by Bright Yilling. If, however, somebody is desperate enough to climb the cliffs, Skara knows a secret way into the fortress. Bright Yilling, they learn, has left his fleet in the supposedly impregnable harbor of Bail’s Point. Escaping by posing as a slave, Skara makes her way to Gettland, where King Uthil and Queen Laithlin confer with their ally, King Grom-gil-Gorm of Vansterland, and Yarvi. Now, Princess Skara of Throvenland watches helplessly as Bright Yilling, the High King’s war leader, callously kills her grandfather King Fynn, burns his halls, and lays waste to her homeland after what the king thought was an agreement turned out to be a betrayal. Previously we glimpsed the grand designs of Father Yarvi, now minister (counselor) to the Iron King Uthil of Gettland, aimed at preventing the High King and his wicked, conniving minister, Grandmother Wexen, from conquering the lands bordering the Shattered Sea and imposing worship of the One God upon unwilling subjects.
Final, independently intelligible entry in the Shattered Sea trilogy, following Half the World (2015, etc.).
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