The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough

Somewhere around three-quarters the way through this book, I found myself thinking that there was no way that Sarah Pinborough could possibly wrap up all of the various plot threads before the end of the novel and that this second book of the trilogy would end up doing little more than set the scene for the final instalment.

How wrong I was.

There is a lot going on in here but Sarah Pinborough does a superb job of bringing everything together in a manner that brings together the various threads without feeling rushed of leaving too much dangling.

DI Cass Jones is still dealing with the fallout of uncovering a major conspiracy within his own police station when a terrorist attack rocks London and he finds himself called on to help with the investigation. At the same time he has his own investigation to worry about: young people are dying, apparently committing suicide – and they’re all linked by the phrase Chaos in the Darkness, scrawled or sent as their last message to the world.

Then he’s given a note from his dead brother Christian, written before his murder: the three words – ‘They took Luke’ – opens up a whole new can of worms, because Cass knows immediately who They are: Mr Bright and the shadowy Network. His dead brother has set him a task from beyond the grave – to find the baby, his nephew, stolen at birth.

And as Cass tries to divide his time between all three investigations, it’s not long before he discovers links, where there should not be. The mysterious Mr Bright is once again pulling his strings, and there’s nothing DI Cass Jones hates more…

A Shadow of the Soul is the middle book of a trilogy and you do need to have read the first book, A Matter of Blood, to properly understand what is going on. In A Matter of Blood, we were introduced to a near-future dystopia with hints of supernatural horror. A Shadow of the Soul retains the police procedural structure of the previous book but, now that the supernatural element has been revealed, takes the time to delve further into the motivations and methods of the beings of The Network.

We have conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies as the central character, Cass Jones (a wonderfully, and believably, miserable individual), attempts to make sense of what is going on around and to him.

While this is the middle book of a trilogy, it also stands up on its own merits as a well contained story. If the series stopped here, I would be reasonably happy but there is a third entry and I shall be reading this very shortly.