This is the Last book of the Sally Lockhart Tales, which most curiously, I started FIRST. This may make little sense, but I started this book having no idea (at first) that this was the very last one. I quickly ordered in the others, feeling rather foolish at my mistake. However, I found my fingers fumbling through the pages of 'Tiger' at alarming speed. This was indeed an adventure of heart-thumping suspense,that HAD to be read despite fears of strong spoilers.

Sally is a strong female, successful, sassy, with financial independence, friends and family (oh, pardon me, this story takes place in 19th century England) whose luck in life takes a sudden horrible plunge when a stranger makes painfully elaborate plans to steal Sally Lockhart's daughter away from her.

I would dub this as a 'modern day Dickens' novel, if the term didn't sound so hammy. But this best describes the writing style of the book. The characters are seeping with social conscience, heart and emotions that tumble out effortlessly. Pullman provides excellent descriptions of life in Victorian England, making the world the characters inhabit fresh and real.

Sally's struggle is heartbreaking and we, as readers, can recognise her fears all too well. I imagine the weight of Sally's loss (of her money, life, friends, family) would be more strongly felt if I had read her previous adventures--however, the narrative does a good job at not making the reader feel isolated. This can be pretty much a standalone tale. It is aimed at a mature audience, and while it tears horribly at the heartstrings and shows a darker side of 19th century London--the writing is never distasteful or shocking.

Lesser known than 'His Dark Materials' but just as blindingly brilliant. ( )

Well, this wrapped up the Sally Lockhart trilogy nicely. Sally was consistently strong-willed throughout all three. I really liked that Pullman finally showed her more vulnerable and emotional than ever before. I missed Jim throughout most of the book just as Sally missed him.I was also glad to learn a bit about the pogroms in Russia. I didn't know about this part of Jewish/Russian history. After reading this book, and Spook Country not too long ago, I'm thinking maybe I should read a book on Russian history. ( )

Engaging mystery involving Sally Lockhart who finds herself threatened with divorce proceedings to a man she never married and the abduction of her daughter. She finds allies in a Hungarian Jewish reporter who is investigating the same man. Sally goes undercover to find the person behind all this is an old enemy. ( )

I may be an adult but at times reading this I was scared as to the possible outcome for Sally and Harriet, which makes this an amazing read. This is a very dark tale, with lots of social commentary, which works within the plot and adds lots of historical colour. Highly recommended. ( )

Good finish to the series. Could have used a bit of editing though. ( )

Summary: Picking up more than two years after the events of The Shadow in the North, the beginning of this book finds Sally Lockhart living a happy - if unconventional - Victorian life. She has a daughter, Harriet, whom she loves, good friends she can count on, and a successful financial consulting business. Then she's served papers suing her for divorce and custody of their child from a Mr. Parrish - a man she's never met, let alone married, and who certainly isn't Harriet's father. Parrish has a string of airtight evidence to show that they are married, however, and the law is clearly on his side. If Sally wants to keep her daughter, she must slip into the darker side of London, rife with poverty, disease, crime, socialist agitators, and a conspiracy designed to victimize Jewish immigrants, and keep herself and her daughter safe until she can figure out who Parrish is - and what he wants with her.

Review: I had given up on the Sally Lockhart series by the end of The Shadow in the North - I liked the characters quite a lot, the writing was excellent, and they evoked Victorian London in all of its damp, gritty, filthy glory. However, my problem was plotting - The Ruby in the Smoke had a well-built and exciting mystery but a terribly rushed denouement, and The Shadow in the North just bored me. However, a friend convinced me to read the rest of the series, and I'm so glad I did. The Tiger in the Well is easily the best of the three, with a fantastic plot that grabbed me right at the beginning, and didn't let go until the end. Even though I figured out who the ultimate bad guy was relatively early on, that didn't lessen my enjoyment of the novel at all. The sense of menace and suspense in this novel is palpable in practically every paragraph; it was terrifying watching Sally have her life dismantled around her, not by a villain by but the legal workings of the system, unable to turn to anyone for help and unable - by virtue of being a woman in a time when women's rights were laughably nonexistant - to even help herself.

There's also some deeper political and social commentary going on in the secondary sub-plots regarding immigration (particularly of Jews), socialism, and some degree of moral responsibility. It gets a smidge on the preachy side sometimes, but for the whole it was worked into the main story quite well. I listened to this book compulsively, finishing it in less than a week, and actually wanting to go do one of the more tedious parts of my job, just so I'd have an excuse to listen. Even though I was pretty sure I'd figured out the overarching mystery, I was intensely absorbed because the suspense is so well-built that I simply couldn't see a way for Sally to save herself and for everything to turn out all right. And, to be fair, there's a deus-ex-machina-element to the ending, but not as much as one might think - and all of the various subplots resolve into an extremely satisfying end. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: This book could actually work fairly well as a stand-alone, although of course your understanding is going to be deeper if you read the series in order. The Tiger in the Well is far and away the best of the bunch, though. Recommended for all those who like historical fiction and/or Philip Pullman's writing. ( )

Is a young, modern woman living in Victorian London supposed to calmly sit by and let a Machiavellian plot threaten her happiness, her entire existence and the most precious person in her life? Not bloody likely!

A few years have passed since The Shadow in the North and Sally Lockhart’s life is contented and comfortable; Jim and Webster are on a South American photography tour when Sally’s life is unraveling in an instant, threatening to rob her of everything she holds dear, her daughter Harriet, her business and her independence. Someone claims to be Sally’s husband and Harriet’s father, serving a court summons filing for divorce and for Harriet’s custody. In a masterfully executed move to coincide with her friends’ absence leaving Sally only in the care of her household staff and thus few resources to break the chain of seemingly incontrovertible evidence, she is supported only by a supercilious solicitor whose only defense is to impugn Sally’s ethical conduct. Finally, Sally’s last resort is to disappear until she gathers the strength to fight back.

With The Tiger in the Well, the third book in the Sally Lockhart series, Philip Pullman has crafted a riveting and fast-paced read, that is just crackling with suspense, returning the story to the vibrant and bustling working milieu of Victorian London, in true Dickensian fashion, where European Jewish immigrants and exploited workers live side by side with agitators, pick-pockets and street urchins. At the same time it is deeply resonating and a moving narrative that made me bristle with outrage at the many social injustices depicted but specifically the fate Sally finds herself in all due to the lack of womens' rights. As with the previous two books in the series, Philip Pullman sets the story into a larger socio-economic context and thus it becomes an indictment on society’s exploitation and persecution of a group of people out of sheer greed.

There were moments when I was so anxious for Sally’s fate, as tension was mounting, that I had to put the book down for a moment, yet I never doubted that she would prevail victoriously. Overall, it is a rollicking good read only diminished slightly by the fact that I was able to discern very early on who was pulling the threads of the conspiracy. If this story had been written in the days when "penny-dreadfuls" were available, it would surely have been a worthy contender and Jim would have loved it. ( )

The third installment in Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart trilogy is The Tiger in the Well. This one was by far the best of the trio, and made me very glad I stuck with the series to the end. Without giving away too much of the plot, suffice it to say that Sally finds herself the victim of a freakishly complicated scheme to undermine her life in some pretty demented ways. As Sally seeks to clear her name and defeat those so intent on ruining her, the cast of characters expands greatly in this volume to include a fair number of gangsters from the various London underworld tribes (don't worry, they're the good guys), a few more fiends (Pullman can write a pretty good nemesis, if you ask me), and a delightfully troublesome little child.

As in The Shadow in the North, Pullman uses this book to discuss some worthwhile topics, including political persecution, the state of life for the working poor, and the treatment of immigrants in late Victorian England. Pulling these in without unduly interfering with the plot was a tricky proposition, but Pullman manages to carry it off remarkably well.

I figured out the mystery fairly early on, but that didn't diminish the excitement I felt as the end finally neared. A creepy, troubling work, and a fine one.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/... ( )

In the vein of a pure ‘penny-dreadful’ itself, The Tiger in the Well is a grand mystery, that entertained me from the very first page to the last – with one of the best end-lines ever uttered.

As with the previous story, this one follows on after a lapse of a few years; but Sally Lockhart’s now prosperous and comfortable life is upended within the first pages, and continues so, at break-neck speed. With perfect timing, when Jim Taylor and Webster Garland are away photographing in South America, leaving Sally at home with only her daughter, Harriet, and their loyal staff, a court summons is served, endangering everything Sally holds dear in her life. A Mr Parrish, claiming to be both Sally’s husband and Harriet’s father, with indisputable written evidence of both, and with the law strongly behind him, threatens Sally’s independence, wealth and, more importantly, custody of her child. Cognizant with her character, Sally does the unexpected; despite her sense of complete bewilderment and moments of mental fragility, she fights back.

Philip Pullman’s social commentary of Victorian England becomes even more Dickensian in this third novel. Against a backdrop of inflamed emotions, between the working poor of London and the influx of desperate refugees from Europe, Pullman creates another dark and disturbing tale, in particular, around the difficulties a solitary, independent, unmarried mother would encounter. And, as always, the book is filled with rich and compelling characters that charm, and menace, and succeed against all odds.

This is, indeed, an indictment of the history of this period – an interpretation of the mores of the time, which allowed the exploitation of the weak by the greedy and the brutal, due to the indifference, and blinding disinterest, of the rest of the populace. It is also a fast-paced, engrossing, captivating, and interesting read - and notwithstanding my absolute belief in our heroine to triumph from the very beginning, I happily followed along, engaged to the very end.

(Jun 3, 2008) ( )

(spoilers)
OK, after Pullman's previous volumes, I spent most of this novel hardening my heart against Harriet. Twice her favourite person has been killed, so I was sure her daughter was going to get it this time. And it wasn't that hard to dislike her, this is the first time I felt Anton failed me - his baby talk sounded like a robot.

Sally's long time lawyer and friend has conveniently died, and her house mates are uncontactable in South America, so no one can vouch for her when a mysterious enemy comes and usurps her life. Of course, Jim arrives back in the nick of time to be a bit of a hero.

I guessed the identify of the new villain in the first chapter, and I found it frustrating what Sally never seemed t consider the possibility until the end.

I did like Sally's social conscience, she's all grown up and wants to make the world a better place. Sometimes the social lessons overwhelmed the story, but if I can put up with it in Wilkie Collins, I can put up with it here.

And her fears about being a bad mother were nicely done, the scene where she played with the little beaten boy was tear-jerking.

So - this mystery was darker, a bit message-y, and very predictable, but still entertaining, and I'll be back for the fourth. ( )

first line: "One sunny morning in the autumn of 1881, Sally Lockhart stood in the garden and watched her little daughter play, and thought that things were good."

Third in the Sally Lockhart series, The Tiger in the Well has stronger socio-political themes than its predecessors. There are issues of discrimination (anti-Semitism) and social reform. Also, Sally herself suffers backlash from the Victorian society whose constraints and mores she has consistently flouted.

This is a powerful conclusion to the story of Sally Lockhart.

Note: there is a fourth book, The Tin Princess, which deals with other characters from the series. ( )

Sorry, but I really found the basic plot hard to swallow.

There are some excellent moments of story telling - and the end is quite gripping (if a little curtailed), but the basic idea of someone being manipulated in such a way is just too beyond belief to stand up in what is essentially a realistic tale. This problem of belief is compounded by the almost 'deus ex machina' arrival of a hero in the final chapters and the fainting away female).

Victorian London could have been made a lot more sinister - and the work of Dickens shows you just what can be done with the idea of bad laws.

The worthy topics touched on (pogroms, socialism, women's rights) seemed too contrived for an adult reader and almost an insult to teenage understanding.

I really do think the Northern Lights series to be an excellent set of books - but there the author is in a world of fantasy. ( )

It was a very good description of what it was like to live in London in 1880. It would have many uses by high school teachers. It would have been improved by some editing; too wordy. ( )

After reading His Dark Materials, I found this a bit disappointing. However, Philip Pullman is still one of the best storytellers ever, so it is worth reading. ( )

This is the longest and most intricate of the books. There are several things going on: Sally's persecution by a mysterious man, persecution of Jews emigrating from Russia and other eastern European countries into England, and the struggle of Socialists in Victorian England. These three books create a path of knowledge for Sally Lockhart. In the first, she is forced to fight for herself. In the second, she learns independence (both economic and personal.) She also becomes aware that evil is not just violence, but the greed and power that is behind it. This third book defines that evil. It is given a face through the words of the Socialist hero who helps Sally. She finally becomes aware of her own part in this evil. By understanding this, she can make the changes in her own life and the life of her friends and clients to fight it.

There is plenty of adventure, as well as politics, to keep the reader engaged. The mystery is easily solved by anyone who has read the first two books long before Sally figures it out. That was the only disappointment to me. Otherwise I think it's a great book. I highly recommend reading these. ( )

My favoutite in the Sally Lockart series and one of the best YA books ever. ( )

Ripping yarn by the author of the incomparable trilogy, His Dark Materials. TTITW is less ambitious, less fantastic. Set in the foggy, gaslit late Victorian London familiar from tales of Sherlock H. and Jack T.R., it is well crafted tale, full of thrills, suspense and surprising twists. No revelation to the adult reader, but certainly the kind of book to instil a love of reading in a child. Can’t fault that. ( )