Ness’s borrowings from previous children’s literature add to the strength of his narrative. The most interesting character is an FBI agent known as Woolf: her metamorphosis is a startling moment that hurls the book towards its climax. Sarah’s friendship with the blue dragon, Kasimir, is akin to that of the boy and the monster in Ness’s Carnegie-winning A Monster Calls, allowing the author to explore power in all its manifestations. Malcolm falls for a Guatemalan boy called Nelson, on the run from his bigoted parents. Romance and relationships provide an emotional counterpoint to the action. Filmic scenes offer striking images: a car flying through the air in the claws of a dragon, a shoot-out straight from Quentin Tarantino.įilmic scenes offer striking images: a car in the claws of a dragon, a shoot-out straight from Tarantino
Sarah seems to be at the nexus of a prophecy about the end of the world, and a young assassin named Malcolm, part of a dangerous cult that worships dragons, sets out on her trail two FBI agents are close behind. Ness is on tip-top form here, deftly propelling a complex plot. To help, he hires a Russian blue dragon to clear some fields by burning them: payment, of course, is in gold. Her mother has recently died, and her father is struggling to keep their farm going. The heroine, 16-year-old Sarah, suffers the worst of such prejudices: her parents were in a mixed marriage, and she’s in love with a local Japanese boy. Racist cops patrol the roads, using violence to intimidate the weak. An uneasy human/dragon truce has been in place for hundreds of years, but the community’s distrust of outsiders runs high.
The initial setting is 1950s America, against the backdrop of the cold war. I n Patrick Ness’s latest novel, dragons exist, in all their fire-breathing glory.
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