attackfish

There was a time when if I had all of the books in a series at once, I would write one review of all of them. There was also a time when I used to write actual reviews, instead of book report style essays. Those times are gone now. We do not speak of those times.

One of the reasons I used to review whole series at once as an attempt to not spoil above the cut text, but oh well. After this point, here there be spoilers for White Cat.

Cassel’s mother is out of prison, and before she gets back to her old tricks, she has a homecoming gift for her son. Beautiful vicious Lila, who he has been in love with since childhood is human again, and his mother has worked her to be infatuated with him. Waiting until the magic has faded would be so much easier if Lila hadn’t decided it was a good idea to go to school with him. Worse, the FBI is sniffing around, and drawing closer and closer to the Sharpe family secrets, and when Cassel’s brother Phillip turns up dead, he’ll have to dive head first into those secrets if he wants to get out of this alive.

Red Glove is a transitional novel, between the gothic genre of White Cat, and the noir of Black Heart. The journeys of two of the novel’s female characters are emblematic of this. Lila spent her time in the first novel as the titular wite cat, and as the mad- or at least very pissed off -woman locked in the attic of Cassel’s mind. In Red Glove, she remakes herself into a femme fatale, not a little girl to be rescued, as she told Cassel in White Cat, but the kind of person her father’s crime syndicate can respect, and one day obey. Lila Zacharov isn’t content to be a mob princess if she can’t be crown princess. There is also the woman with the red glove. She is that quintessentially noir figure, the unnamed woman at the heart of a mystery, identified tantalizingly with a single article of vivid, alluring clothing. Although her status as femme fatale is ultimately subverted when Cassel discovers who she is and why she killed his brother, her story is also a rejection of her previous status as a gothic heroine. Her act of murder is an attempt to escape both the gothic and the noir. The fact that her attempt is successful brings questions about what lies at the edges of a gothic or noir story, for characters who have escaped.

Cassel too is making the journey from a gothic protagonist to a noir protagonist. Although there are still secrets buried inside of his own mind, he already has an idea about what they are. Now, he is actively trying to prevent others from discovering those secrets. He is no longer being actively magically manipulated. Now, he is dealing with the fallout of being magically manipulated.

Another aspect of Red Glove that ties it to the noir genre is a subtle shift in tone in how the amorality of almost every single character is portrayed. In White Cat, it’s there but not dwelled on, and it felt to me as the reader as if Black wasn’t willing to deal with the implications when there was more fun stuff to be written about. That changes in Red Glove, when all of the amorality mentioned in passing in White Cat comes to the forefront. Cassel’s brothers were all too eager to mindwipe him into being their two in one murder weapon and body disposal service. Phillip saw no problem in doing the same to his wife to make her forget he was abusing her. Lila helped them use Cassel to commit multiple murders, and Cassel’s grandfather is a retired hitman. Cassel’s mother clearly intended to facilitate her son raping Lila. The FBI agents are absolute thugs, and Lila’s father is the sort of man who hires hitmen to do his dirty work for him. Cassel is, Black makes clear, extraordinarily willing to allow himself to be surrounded by people who are absolutely depraved. Morally conflicted, dishonest Cassel is, aside from Sam and Danica, the most moral person in the series.

Not only has the focus on the amorality of individual characters intensified, but there is a much greater focus on they society outside of Cassel’s criminal bubble. The political debate about whether or not mandatory testing for worker abilities should be instituted, and the fears on the part of workers and their allies that this will lead to closeted workers losing their jobs or getting evicted, or worse, lead to the bad old days of worker internment and forced labor, emphasize how little safety and security Cassel, or anyone, has in this world. And Black makes it clear that this isn’t just mindless bigotry. While it’s obviously wrong to discriminate against people for the way they were born, it’s also absolutely understandable why workers are so feared. One of the biggest proponent of mandatory testing is himself the victim of some pretty awful workings. The fact that prejudice is wrong and dangerous, doesn’t mean it isn’t understandable.

One of the things I absolutely love about this series, and Red Glove in particular is te way Black plays Cassel’s double existence, as boarding school student and criminal worker and former hitman for every ounce of surrealism inherent in the premise. He gets hauled into the principal’s office because of the FBI. Lila eats the mouse the students have been betting on. His friends get dragged into criminality with him. The more he tries to keep up a semblance of a normal life, the more that life spins wildly out of control. By the end, he is grasping at straws and desperate for a glimpse of hope.

Red Glove is a strong second novel in a trilogy, every bit as powerful and page turning as the first and third, with none of the flaws middle novels are so often plagued by.

The same warning that I gave at the end of my previous review still applies. This is a very good book, but it’s emotionally a difficult read, and potentially extremely triggery. If you’re considering reading it and worried about it, you can PM me to discuss any specific concerns.

Holly Black can be found online at her website, blackholly.com, or on livejournal, as