Review by Booklist Review
After an four-year series hiatus, trouble-seeking photographer Cass Neary returns, picking up where she left us in Hard Light (2016). Separated from her boyfriend, Quinn, while fleeing the fallout from a Finnish killer's plot, Cass follows Quinn's cryptic clues to London, but, before she can find him, she is drawn into old acquaintance Gryffin Hazelton's plans to deliver a legendary, allegedly magical, book to a buyer's dealer. By the end of the night, the dealer is murdered, the book is stolen, and Cass and Gryffin are forcibly summoned by the buyer. Billionaire software designer Tindra Bergstrand is distraught: the book holds a primeval code that she needs to finish Ludus Mentis, an app that can rewire traumatic memories. Cass agrees to help: it's a win-win if the book furthers Tindra's world-saving vision, and Cass and Quinn can use the cash to hide from their pasts. Finally reunited, Cass and Quinn follow a trail of bodies to a remote Swedish island, where a former folk singer has traded fame for an underground neo-Nazi record label. It's a wild ride that defies comparison: pill-popping idealist Cass Neary's obsessive hunt piles on teeth-grinding, story-propelling tension, and Hand's gifted portrayal of subcultures seamlessly links Cass' past in New York's '80s punk scene, London's rare-book dealers, and Odinist neo-Nazis.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The discovery of an ancient book of arcane lore bound in human skin and possibly written by Aristotle drives Hand's enjoyable if at times overplotted fourth Cass Neary thriller (after 2016's Hard Light). Cass, a middle-aged punk photographer hooked on alcohol and pills, is lying low in London on a false passport and desperate for money to get her and her boyfriend, Quinn, out of the country. On learning of the book's sale to an eccentric video game designer, Cass realizes that cutting herself in on the deal might just solve their problems. The buyer, Tindra Bergrstrand, needs the book to complete an app that can alter the user's mental state and trigger powerful, sometimes violent emotional memories. When the book is stolen from the dealer and Tindra disappears, Cass begins a frantic search to locate both Tindra and the book. The action hurtles toward an exciting climax on an island off the Swedish coast. That this adventure ends for once on a positive note for Cass, who so far has been living on an addict's ragged edge, will please series fans. Newcomers will find this a good entry point. Agent: Martha Millard, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Hand's punk antiheroine Cass Neary returns in her fourth adventure (after 2016's Hard Light). Still hiding out in London on a shady passport, still drinking and drugging, she finds trouble this time in the form of an ancient illuminated manuscript, The Book of Lamps and Banners, rumored to have been written by Aristotle, and to have magical properties. An old frenemy of Cass's plans to sell the book to software designer Tindra Bergstrand, who wants to use it to complete a mind-altering app. But when a bookseller is killed, the manuscript is stolen, and Tindra disappears, Cass grabs her old flame, Quinn, and staggers after all. Up against white nationalists in London, sinister residents on an island off the Swedish coast, and her own dependencies and darkness, Cass may not make it out alive. VERDICT Hand's desolate descriptions and Cass's larger-than-life persona help to carry a story that is not as intricately plotted as her 2019 stand-alone, Curious Toys, with a few characters not fully fleshed out. Still, followers of the series will be happy to see Cass return.--Liz French, Library Journal
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a dystopian world of heavy fog, Nazi demonstrations, and a creeping virus, photographer Cass Neary searches for an ancient book that might have supernatural power. Cass is a wreck. She's lost her camera; she hasn't heard from the love of her life, ex-con Quinn O'Boyle, in several days; and she's jonesing for alcohol, speed, or anything else she can get her hands on. When she runs into rare-book runner Gryffin Haselton in London, he confesses that he's about to make the sale of a lifetime to up-and-coming tech genius Tindra Bergstrand: a mysterious, arcane book that may have been written by Aristotle. Of course, things go horribly wrong: The middleman is murdered, and Cass and Gryffin escape only to be picked up by Tindra's people. It turns out that Tindra wants the Aristotle text to scan into an app she's developing that's supposed to heal the brains of people suffering from PTSD--but when Cass gets a glimpse of the Ludus Mentis app, she flashes back viscerally to the greatest trauma of her life. Reunited with Quinn, Cass is soon on the run, dodging neo-Nazis as they rally in London and following clues to a remote Scandinavian island, hoping that if she recovers the book it could pay her and Quinn's way to a new start. Cass is walking wounded; still she views the world through the eyes of a true artist, an artist who feels the full weight of her calling. "Because what is a photographer," she asks, "but a chooser of the slain, someone who decides who or what is destined for immortality?" Cass Neary is a tough, self-destructive character who still exudes compassion, courage, and love for the beauty and the pain of life--even more so because she recognizes its impermanence. Part The Club Dumas, part The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, all punk attitude and beautiful ache. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
