Mosca is one of those feisty hoydens - Pullman's Lyra and Aiken's own Dido Twite come to mind - whose conversation cloaks a fierce intelligence by the deployment of demotic tics which after a while become as irritating as Tony Blair's wandering glottal stop. The scene seems set for a breakneck adventure in a demented version of 18th-century England, out of the same mould as Joan Aiken's Willoughby Chase novels. None of the characters is what they seem, and fresh conspiracies are revealed at every turn. Mosca, whose loyalties lie principally with herself, hitches her wagon to the star of the icily beautiful Lady Tamarind.
The Stationers' Company will stop at nothing to discover it, since unauthorised print will foment unrest, while the Company of Locksmiths builds its own power base. Somewhere in the city, insurgents are said to operate an illicit printing press, disseminating seditious literature. Mosca and her companion walk into a maelstrom of plot and counter-plot, murder and espionage, involving deranged aristocrats, felons, religious maniacs, megalomanic craft guilds and floating coffee houses (these last are hotbeds of intrigue that can operate only on the river). The bulk of the population pays lip service to loyalty and little care who rules, but those who do care are fanatics. Said kingdom has been fractured since the heir died childless and the committee appointed to decide upon a successor failed to do so.
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