…Clementine

Posted by james m. toburen in 100 Pages Of...

100 pages into Clementine, and I couldn’t help but notice that the protagonist, Maria Isabella Boyd, possesses a little more spine than your average wilting flower. Cherie Priest‘s Clementine, the second work in her Clockwork Century timeline, follows characters new and old after the events of Boneshaker. Marie, formerly an infamous Confederate spy, now widowed and exiled, has moved to the North and found a job with the Pinkerton detective agency. Her first assignment requires her to ensure the safe arrival of a dirigible and its mysterious cargo, but another airship pursues her quarry, this one flown by the escaped slave and wanted felon Croggon Hainey (a side character from Priest’s Boneshaker, now acting as Clementine’s deuteragonist). Like Briar Wilkes, Maria Boyd won’t allow her mission to be stopped by anything or anyone; she’s more likely to hide a derringer in her purse than a tube of lipstick. Of course, why can’t a lady carry both? And Croggon’s unfailing determination to recover his stolen airship could certainly result in the death of both himself and his crew: nothing stands between a captain and his ship.

Even within the first few pages, an alliance between these two seems a foregone conclusion. Much of the novel’s fun originates from the radical contrast between the two main characters. Croggon Hainey, a blunt and intimidating man, bludgeons his way forward using his brute strength, while the bold Maria Boyd uses any trick at her disposal, although she never shies from getting her hands dirty. Cherie Priest has written two dangerous and dogged individuals and set them loose like hounds chasing the same rabbit. The action starts early, and the quandary of the cryptic cargo and its unknown destination has grabbed my attention and held it. Cherie Priest returns to the Clockwork Century without feeling the need to go straight back to the well, in this case a well filled with mephitic gases and populated by ravenous zombies. Her expanding universe reveals a startling different history: a war-torn nation, the skies filled with battling airships. I’m hopeful that Clementine will deliver on its early promise in the same fashion that Boneshaker did. Stay tuned for my review in the next few days!