The Shadow in the North

3 stars. I was struggling to continue this book for the first 50% but then I devoured the last half in one evening - although I'm still trying to decide whether it's in a good or bad way.

Sally Lockhart has set up as a teenage independent woman in Victorian London by establishing herself as a financial consultant. An elderly lady client comes in to ask her about her latest investment which had totally sunk all her money when the Anglo-Baltic Company unexpectedly collapsed. Sally suspects fraud and immediately begins investigating, along with her friends Jim Taylor and Frederick Garland.

The writing style felt very middle-grade so at the beginning I was a little unsure about whether this was meant for a younger audience. Imagine how jarring the contrast was when, after the 50% mark, the plot developed in a way that certainly wasn't meant for middle-grade audiences.

The central mystery of this story has a lot to do with complicated machinery (unsurprising considering Pullman's experience in the steampunk-ish genre), and Pullman doesn't pull any punches with the technical details. I personally found it rather boring, and coupled with an ebook copy with messed-up formatting, I couldn't help skimming through a lot of passages in the book. I definitely found the side-mystery of Alastair McKinnon much more engaging and interesting than the central one with the Anglo-Baltic Company.

About the second half of the book: WHAT JUST HAPPENED? It's like the story went from being ye olde regular Victorian mystery to pulling out all the stops and becoming a full-fledged soap opera at the drop of a hat. The first sign to me that shit was going down was when Chaka died, that really upset me. I do not like it when pets die in books :( After that, everything went on fairly well until suddenly Sally initiated a one night passion with Frederick after they had confessed to each other? I found that super out of character. I get that Sally may have been emotionally affected by the attack on her shop and the death of Chaka, all because she had pig-headedly (in my opinion) refused to go live with the Garlands for her own safety. But even so... why would she just randomly decide to have sex with Fred just because they established that they loved each other. Immediately after that, the evil henchmen set fire to the house, in which Frederick immediately dies while saving Isabel Meredith, who conveniently turns batty just at that moment of the fire when she's never really displayed any sign of mental instability??? We never really get any hint that she's going off her rocker even after she finds out about McKinnon's marriage - things were happening too quickly and we never get the chance to explore that, and the onset of her mental instability was just too conveniently sudden too.So after Frederick dies, Sally immediately goes to find Mr Bellmann to seek her revenge. He immediately proposes marriage to her, and she rather quickly accepts his hand, especially after she has fleeced him of the money/gold that she had set out to recover for Miss Walsh in the first place. Then later she asks Bellmann for a very-unsuspicious tour of his factory and Steam Gun production, during which she shoots something and the whole thing explodes.But of course, Sally is blown conveniently out of the way during the first detonation, so she survives almost unscathed while Bellmann is blown to pieces. Oh, and later she of course finds out that she is pregnant with Frederick's baby because everything is super convenient. Why is everything so convenient in the second half of this book!??!?!

Despite all the rants I have for the second half of the book, I won't deny that it was still a very entertaining read just for the drama, which is why this book is even 3 stars at all. I read the first book a really long time ago so I can't quite remember much about it, but I don't think I recall having the same thoughts about this. I'll probably continue the series at some point since I own the last 2 books, but it's fairly low on my priority at the moment. I might just want to check out The Golden Compass by Pullman, which I hope is a much better read.