Seven for a Secret (Timothy Wilde, #2)

Timothy Wilde is a character in the vein of Rick Yancey's Pellinore Warthrop and Leigh Bardugo's Kaz Brekker - as in the kind of character with a preternatural gift for observation, and for absorbing and analyzing information very quickly. That is to say, these are Sherlock Holmes clones (Wilde and Warthrop being more overt homages, as Faye has written two Sherlock Holmes books, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually shows up [b:The Isle of Blood 9955669 The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist, #3) Rick Yancey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389393836l/9955669.SX50.jpg 14849405]). However, where Wilde differs from these two, and every other iteration of Holmes we've seen, is that instead of pompously confident in his abilities, Wilde is profoundly humble. Like, frustratingly, achingly humble. Like, oh my god, stop beating yourself up for two seconds and actually use that wonderful brain of yours, you doofus.And when Tim is not beating himself up, he's often getting the stuffing kicked out of him by someone else. Give my poor Tim a break, Faye, please.Even though it's been a minute since I read [b:The Gods of Gotham 11890816 The Gods of Gotham (Timothy Wilde, #1) Lyndsay Faye https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1518152198l/11890816.SY75.jpg 16849818], I do remember it as a very striking mystery story, if quite dark. Seven for a Secret feels less like a mystery and more like a puzzle - a stage is set, and Timothy Wilde must figure out how what got where before it's too late. The task of saving and protecting a family targeted by slave catchers because a complex web of political scandal, a barely-there legal system that is deeply ignorant in how to protect free Black people, and a fight for personhood and freedom that the characters are mostly just trying to survive through. Most of the players and pieces are known, Timothy Wilde just has to figure out where they belong in order to save the people important to him. Silkie Marsh, evil brothel madame and the villain of the last book, is back and is looking to be Tim and Valentine's white whale. The barely established NYPD is, of course, already rife with corruption. Politics, optics, and the cultural progress of the times streak through this story, all the while our dear Tim is just trying to be a decent person in world that finds a thousand new ways to be ugly every single day.I liked this very much. Faye is great at creating compelling characters and settings, and it's easy to feel immersed. I love that the relationship between Timothy Wilde and his brother, Valentine, is shaping up to be the core of this series. And while this is a story with a white (and, admittedly, kind of oblivious when it comes to real racial issues) central character navigating an acutely Black story, there is something about the way Faye tells it that gets across the sheer terror and evil of being denied the right to be a whole person, which I don't think I've encountered often. You know what I liked less though? How many times I had to read that Silkie Marsh was incredibly beautiful and also incredibly evil. Like, I get it, a person who traffics and murders children is about as soulless as you can get, but Marsh is starting to become a bit of a cartoon character, which doesn't seem to fit with the complexity of Faye's story.But I appreciated that this book ends on a note (or several, actually) of happiness and promise. That felt needed after the amount of times Wilde got beat up.