Reviewed by Emma Newrick
The third Matthew Swift adventure in a magically-charged, alternate London
When the city was founded, he was the mad native spirit that waited in the dark, on the edge of the torchlight. When the streets were cobbled over, he became the footsteps heard on stone that you cannot see. When the Victorians introduced street lighting, he was the shadow who always shied away from the light, and when the gas went out, there he was. The shadow at the end of the alley, the footsteps half-heard in the night.
A daimyo of the Neon Court is dead. So are two warriors of the Tribe. And a freshly-prophesied ‘chosen one’ is missing. Each side blames the other and Matthew Swift is right in the middle of it, trying to keep the peace. Because when magicians go to war, everyone loses. But Swift has even bigger problems. A dead woman is trying to kill him and the city itself is under attack from a force of unimaginable power. As if trying to stay one step ahead of an assassin and juggling magical politics weren’t challenging enough, Swift must also find a way to defeat a primal threat from humanity’s darkest nightmares. Or there may not be a London left to fight over...
Kate Griffin’s London is as memorable as Neil Gaiman’s, and just as dark. Her urban magic ebbs and flows with the rhythms of city life, and her Londoners rub shoulders with sorcerers, oracles and supernatural beings. In The Neon Court, the third novel following urban sorcerer (and not quite human) Matthew Swift is as gripping as The Madness of Angels and The Midnight Mayor.
