Cold Copper by Devon Monk

 When Cedar, Mae, Wil, Miss Dupuis and the Madder brothers arrive in Des Moines in the middle of a blizzard, they find themselves bound by an old promise the brothers made to the grandfather of a priest in that town, and must divert from their purpose of hunting down the Holder to deliver a favor owed. I wonder, however, nearly immediately if Monk is repeating a plot gimmick here from the first book, as it  turns out that chasing down the children who went missing "after the star fell from the sky" is part and parcel of their quest to find the pieces of the ancient weapon, which wreak death and destruction wherever they land. Or, could it be that the nature of the Holder causes these sort of events, using weak young children to power its mischief? The jury is still out on that one.

Rose and Captain Hinks remain in Kansas, and their little bit of romantic paradise is rapidly put through the wringer when she catches the man she loves frequenting the local bordello. I suspect that all is not as it appears here, either, since Hinks is actually a U.S. Marshall, and it is likely that he is playing a role in pursuit of the president's investigation, and simply hasn't let her know, having been single far too long. Rose makes the acquaintance of a very charming fellow, Thomas Wicks, who lures her away to, of all places, a library, and may be able to give Hinks a run for his money in Rose's affections.

Oops, I was wrong about the number of books in this series. Near the end, when Cedar recovers another piece of the Holder, and says he has six left to find, the Madder brothers tell him that they have already found another shard.

We get a few more hints about the Madder brothers, and a new insight into orphan Rose's nature, and Monk plays some fun games with the literality of a binding promise, and see Cedar and Wil's curse lifted from them and born by another for a time (I could have said "by a spell for a spell", but that was just a bit too folksy, eh?).

Another plot device that seems to repeat here is that the chief antagonist in the novel is another powerful man who is bringing modernity to Des Moines, in the form of universal telegraph lines of "cold copper" which will join them with the entire nation, perhaps the world, and who is willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how evil, to accomplish his goals and to gain power for himself, Mayor Vosbrough. Perhaps there's a moral to the story arc of power corrupting, and technology enabling power to  grow more rapidly than is "natural".

Nearly every chapter in this multi-threaded tale ends with a minor cliffhanger, leaving us with the desire to get back to that part of the story quickly, yet we are returned to the solution of an earlier dilemma from another plot thread. Monk is definitely at or near the top of her game these days. Hope she can maintain it for a good long time.

Tin Swift by Devon Monk

 Monk has written a great second novel in her new Age of Steam series. Some time has actually passed since the end of Cold Iron, and the ragged little band consisting of the Madder brothers, Rose, Cedar, Mae, and Wil, the wolf, have been slowly making their way east from Oregon to Kansas. As we pick up the tale, they are crossing Idaho, past Fort Boise on the way to the Bitteroots. Mae is being driven out of her mind by the geas set upon her by the coven where she grew up to return to them, now that her marriage vow is broken by Jed's death. When they stop in the town of Victory to seek supplies, they find that the entire population has been wiped out, and the bodies multilated.

Cedar senses the presence of one of the fragments of the Holder, as well as the scent of their old "friend" Mr. Shunt, who has made it his mission in what passes for his Strange version of life to harass and kill Cedar and his friends. When they trigger a trap left behind by Shunt, the townsfolk reanimate and attack. In the ensuing battle, the Madder brothers stay behind to battle the zombies, allowing Cedar, Wil, Rose and Mae to make their getaway. Not unscathed, however, as when the trap sprung, Rose was infected with a fragment of the Holder which Shunt left behind, and its evil begins to drain her life force. They must get Mae to the Coven, and get Rose the help she needs.

An odd sort of rescue takes place when Captain Hinks, a glim gatherer with a steam airship at his command, shows up on the scene just in time to rescue the quartet from the zombie horde. Hinks is an undercover U.S. Marshal, working for the president, hunting down corruption in the glim trade. He has an archenemy, General Alabaster, a traitor whom he exposed long ago, and who is now allied with Mr. Shunt and dogging the steps of both Hinks and our adventurers. Cedar and company pick up a few new allies as well, and become acquainted with the league of folks who are also on the trail of the Holder, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

We catch a glimpse of the nature of glim,
"Glim, more precious than diamonds or gold, used to power ships on air, water, or land. Used to heal the sick, cure the blights, turn the tide in wars, and make anything and everything stronger and longer lasting. Glim was even rumored to extend a man's life well beyond his years."

We begin to see some hints that although Cedar has always regarded the curse laid on Wil and himself as, well, a curse, the Pawnee gods may have had something else in mind. Cedar and Wil are the only ones who can sense and track the Holder, and they may be destined to save the world, so to speak.

"Cedar's ability to sense the Holder gave him an edge on those others looking for it. Whether his sensitivity to the weapon was a product of the Pawnee curse in his bones, or pure bad luck, he didn't know and didn't care."

"Cedar looked taller, inhuman, like a hunter out of legend, or some kind of warrior of old come to put the land right."

And a little bit of poetry from Monk,

"We all deserve happiness, Rose. Our lives should be filled with it whether the days are dark or sunny. Happiness doesn't beg permission. It just walks across our threshold, sets itself down beside us, and waits for us to notice."

Lots of great action, evil ploys, and even a bit of romance as Cedar and Mae finally admit to their feelings, and other little affairs begin. Since the Holder split in seven pieces at the conclusion of Cold Iron, and were scattered across the country, and Cedar is bound by his promise to the Madders to find them, and given that they find one of the fragments in this book, I'm guessing we have six exciting sequels coming our way.

Dead Iron by Devon Monk

 This new series by Devon Monk has a steep learning curve. It seems to me radically different in setting and tone than her Allie Beckstrom series. We begin in the American West, somewhere between the Blue and Wallowa Mountains (an area quite familiar to me) in the fictional town of Hallelujah, where a mysterious yet flamboyant man, Shard LeFel, is bringing the railroad to town, and the hopes of its residents are pinned on the prosperity it will bring. To their chagrin, should they ever find out, it is actually being built for the purpose of providing a channel for The Strange, supernatural, possibly psychotic, and predatory creatures to feed on the nightmares and fears of helpless humans. The near caricature of the false religion practiced by the townsfolk - all the trappings of Christianity but none of the heart - contrasts oddly with the slightly more noble and sometimes altruistic behavior of the werewolves, witches, zombies and seers in their midst. I'd say that there are good, evil, and in-between folks in this story, but the good is awfully hard to find, and not where you'd expect it.

There's a fun bit of tension in the early part of the novel when the reader, of course, can see that the shapeshifter, Cedar Hunt, who is hunting for a missing child, and the witch, Mae Lindson, who beseeches him to help her find the man who killed her husband Jeb (who like James Bond simply refuses to die quietly (and the villain likes to brag about his plans, too)), actually are aiming for the same target, and we wonder how long it will take before they figure it out.

Cedar is wracked with guilt for having murdered his own brother when he first experiences the change, and by some strange coincidence comes into possession of his dead brother's pocket watch in the early stages of the tale. The Madder Brothers, whom we immediately dislike and file away into the "big stupid bad guy" category, turn out to be a bit more of a complex surprise that we bargained for.

The foundling shop girl, Rose Small, seems like a bit part when we first encounter her when Cedar goes into town for some supplies, but her role in the coming conflict is huge, and she may just be the one character in the story who has her head on straight. She has the uncanny ability to see the truth through illusion, as well as the talents of a "deviser" and ambitions far larger than her surname would imply.

LeFel has a more personal motive in kidnapping the boy, capturing a wolf, and sacrificing a witch; to return to the world from which his brother exiled him three centuries ago, and to obtain vengeance for his exile. If he does not return soon, the mortal world will kill him, who was born immortal. He has a sidekick, Mr. Shunt, who is a Strange of a very strange kind, and whose merciless evil makes him the perfect minion, aside from the minor problem that all of his tasks seem to fail in the end.

A great start, and I hope an indication of a long and prosperous series. I this whole Steampunk genre is still finding its way, as each time I've found something under that label, it's been a new adventure. Heaven help us if the themes ever grow old and stale.