The Midnight Palace (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Midnight Palace Claire Gross Zafón, Carlos Ruiz. The Midnight Palace; tr. from the Spanish by Lucia Graves. Little, 2011. [298p]. ISBN 978-0-316-04473-8 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5–8. In 1916, Ben was left as an infant at St. Patrick’s Orphanage in Calcutta, India, hidden there by his grandmother while she went on the run with his twin sister, Sheere. She hoped the orphanage would be a sanctuary from Jawahal, an evil supernatural being apparently bent on the children’s deaths, and she believed the twins would be safest if separated. Now, sixteen years later, Jawahal has returned to hunt both twins, who are at last united. Their only allies against Jawahal are their aging grandmother, the big-hearted, upstanding head of St. Patrick’s, and the Chowbar Society, Ben’s orphan peers who have pledged to protect each other just as family would. Jawahal—with his command of fire and imperviousness to attack—is a chilling villain, and his backstory develops slowly, shaped by the specter of British imperialism and the lingering tragedy of a long-ago train accident. Unfortunately, the Darth Vader–esque twist of his identity feels forced and improbable. While the setting and suspense are vivid and creepy, the characters are never imbued with commensurate depth; they speak in stiff, stilted dialogue and they have a tendency to summarize the main points of the mystery at regular intervals. The atmospheric combination of history (history-lite, at least; details beyond architecture and geography are cherry-picked at best) and horror may nevertheless appeal to thrill-seeking readers; send others on to Pullman’s A Ruby in the Smoke(BCCB 5/87) for an equally chilling but more rigorously developed adventure novel shadowed by the costs of colonial occupation. [End Page 447] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois