Red Glove

I was pretty enamored with the first book in this series, White Cat, and yet I took my damn time picking up its sequel. It's an oddly anonymous series. The world-building is fascinating, and Holly Black takes on the difficult task of creating an alternate history world that looks exactly like ours but has deep biases and norms that are starkly different from our own. In this book, those elements expand. Unfortunately, the story around Cassel Sharpe doesn't move a whole lot.

Red Glove is fine. It's fine, really. It suffers greatly from middle-book syndrome in that its primary purpose is to get its characters from one point to the other, neither of which being the beginning or end of their journeys. As such, it feels a little aimless. After Cassel's dangerous and criminal brother finally gets his comeuppance and is killed, Cassel is recruited by two FBI agents to solve his murder as well as number of others that Cassel is fairly certain he committed himself. Meanwhile, he's being courted by mob boss Zacharov, trying to avoid the affections of Zacharov's daughter, Lila, who he loves but has been cursed to love him, and like any senior in high school, trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life, a task that is all the more complicated when who you are is inherently criminal. As you can imagine, he does a lot of fumbling around.

Holly Black's writing is quick and arresting, so this was easy to breeze through. I was never bored. The characters are as well-drawn as ever, and there are a lot great moments. But I kept wondering, “Where is this going?” It does go somewhere, and Cassel makes some significant decisions for himself, his family and his friends, but I don't know how strongly I feel about any of them. The central plot - the murder mystery - is probably the least interesting thing about this book. I much preferred the politics, Cassel's relationships with his friends and his family, and the atmosphere of crime as family. I do have a strong urge to read the last book as soon as possible because this book feels very incomplete. I say that of course, but if my track record is any indication, I probably won't.