Where the Time Goes

In the peculiar but mostly satisfying ninth Western Lights novel (after The Cobbler of Ridingham), Barlough tells a fabulous and darkly mysterious tale of a young solicitor’s quest through time. In the English colonies of America’s west coast, which have been “sundered” from the rest of the world for two centuries (the parallels to our timeline are unclear) by a resurgent Ice Age, solicitor Philip Earnscliff has been called to the remote village of Dithering, ostensibly to help settle the affairs of Dr. Hugh Callender. The good doctor is comatose when Philip arrives, and it soon becomes clear that his acquaintance Miss Violet Carswell has given him a cordial from the mysterious Woldfolk that will allow him to revisit events in the past. Philip is asked to do the same so that he may avert a tragic outcome, but he will have to do battle with a strange metallic piskie and face the monster of Eldritch’s Cupboard to succeed. Barlough’s bucolic scenes and strange doings pleasingly recall Conan Doyle’s more rural Holmes adventures, though his final twists seem out of place, even for this most unusual story. (Nov.)