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I absolutely adore this series and pray that it continues. The ingenuity, the historical nature of it and the great characters - so wonderful. I'm deeply wowed by the way in which Moriarty weaves in history, Jewish lore, the Kabbalah, and the Lower East Side. Great read.
First, if you have not read The Inquisitor’s Apprentice by Chris Moriarty quite yet, remedy that issue. After all, it is a book that’s received praise from both Cory Doctorow and Garth Nix which is kind of a big deal. Moriarty’s The Watcher In The Shadows continues with it’s predecessor’s momentum and is just as superb as the first book. If you aren’t familiar with either book, I’ll lay it out for you: these books have a character reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, but it’s set in the early 1900s d...
Set in an alternate 19th century New York City that is teeming with magic; the book follows Sacha, a 13 year old apprentice to the inquisitor as they investigate the death of a musician who was fried in his electric tuxedo. It is discovered that the musician had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his musical talent and fame. As Sacha and the inquisitor get closer to solving the mystery Sacha realizes that the devil in question is the same monster that tormented him in the first book of t...
If I were rating this purely for my own use, I would up it to 4 stars because I enjoyed it and it is a well written sequel, something that is not always the case(!) And for that reason, it gets 3 stars.However, as I said with the first book, there is a lot going on here that will totally confuse kids who read this who have no background either in New York City history or Jewish customs or perhaps even both. In-jokes that made me chortle might as well have been written in Yiddish for most readers...
Originally posted here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.The Inquisitor's Apprentice (my thoughts) was one of my favorite reads of 2011. And I feel like I've been waiting for it's sequel, The Watcher in the Shadows, forever. I pre-ordered it, not so patiently waited for it to arrive, and immediately bumped it to the top of my reading pile when it finally came. All that waiting was so worth it.Sacha is far more proactive and outgoing in this volume, though often unclear which direction to take a...
Readers head back to turn of the century New York in this sequel to the Inquisitor's Apprentice. Sacha and Lily continue to help Inquisitor Wolf amid Sacha's older sister's growing involvement in a strike for better working conditions in the city's textile mills. In this book, they investigate the death of a clarinet player, electrocuted by his own costume, and Sacha struggles with whether he should learn to do magic. This alternate version of New York is filled with interesting individuals and
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone meets Fiddler on the Roof meets Doctor Zhivago. Oy vey iz mir! I enjoyed this book, but it's supposed to be a kids book and I don't know the kid who would enjoy it. Nitpicking: I don't think that the scratchy black & white sketches add anything to the book. Also, in the illustration on 25 Sacha is wearing knickers. In The Jewish Community Under the Frankford El after their Bar Mizvah, boys normally wore long pants. This usually carries through into fiction,
Clever and charming and richly imagined, with every detail just perfect. Not as crowded with historical figures or situations as the last one, more focused on the main characters and story. Which doesn't make it better or worse, just a little different. I think this one might have been a big more active and exciting though, it's hard to remember the pace of the first one. The humor might have been turned up a bit as well, Sasha and his family's interactions with the mob fellows were pretty witty...
Enjoyable...
4.5 stars This book intertwined plot & character development really well by raising the stakes for all of the characters, and Moriarty deftly weaves real history around her magical alternate universe (there's an author's note with explanations). The narrative continues to reflect the real diversity of turn-of-the-century New York without making a big deal about it; I was especially pleased at the somewhat expanded role for Philip and all the great details about the Kessler family. Sadly, this se...
Love the idea of an alternate steampunky/magic-inflected immigrant turn-of-the-century Lower East Side. But the characters are flat, and I think kids will miss most of the historical references. Most will find the scene-setting dense, and the book lacks the genuine creepiness of the first installment (though I thought this meant it was tonally more consistent...if less interesting). In short, not bad, but I desperately wanted to like it more than I did.
I enjoyed this book and found it to be a fine sequel to the Inquisitor's Apprentice; in fact, i liked it even more than that first book. I appreciated the alternative history approach, which, while including elements of fantasy and magic, had a realistic ring and feel to it. The characters were complex, well developed, and endearing, and the story was engaging. The modern Jewish cultural and religious elements were particularly interesting and felt a very natural part of the entire literary cont...
In which Sacha gets himself into more trouble, and his dybbuk is still a problem, and what about the watcher, who seems to be made of flies? The historic-New York-with-magic setting, with emphasis on the Jewish Lower East Side culture, is excellent. Rather than Communists organizing unions, it's Wiccanists, who have the IWW (Industrial Witches of the World), who plan to strike at the Pentacle Shirtwaist Factory. (I have a premonition about a big fire in the next book.) There's one murder mystery...
I love this alternative history world Chris Moriarty has created, a version of early 1900s New York City where magic is commonplace, but under the control of the police department's Inquisitor division. It's a world where tenement-dwellers clash with upper-crust families of ultrarich wizards, where Old World traditions collide with Industrial Age realities. In this second installation, 13-year-old apprentice Sacha Kessler doesn't simply follow Inquisitor Max Wolf on the investigation of a myster...
Sacha Kessler, still working as an Inquisitor, must figure out who killed a much admired, and much hated, klezmer musician, while on stage before a crowd. Does it have anything to do with his sudden fame? With Sacha's dybbuk, still on the loose from his last adventure. And can he escape the clutches of evil mastermind and magical genius, J P Morgaunt?Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this second supernatural mystery set in an alternate history where magic is controlled and questioned in 1900-ish New...
1.) I love this series so much. 2.) This book two is clearly setting up a glorious book three.3.) There is no sign of book three in the past seven years, and in fact the author seems to have disappeared off the face of this earth (though with no death notice)? 4.) Therefore I am sulk.
This book is everything that a tween or teen reader is looking for today...it is a little Victorian, just a touch of Steampunk and lots of Adventure.That being said I really didn't expect to like it (not a big fan of Alternate Worlds) but it won me over! I didn't read Book One in the series, The Inquisitor's Apprentice so I truly thought it might be a difficult read but the characters and story sucked me in!Magic - History - and death by an Electric Tuxedo? what's not to like? ...oh and the auth...
Ok, so we found this series on a library run this summer, but I PURCHASED them, I loved them so much! The story is a wonderful mix of genuine historical setting (New York's famous Bowery District, at the turn the century) and magic!The MC, Sacha, is a Jewish immigrant who tries to hide his Jewishness from his co-apprentice, a wealthy young girl his same age, Lilly. They are apprentices of the (in)famous Inspector Wolf.The first case, preventing the murder of Harry Houdini, soon revolves around S...
3.5 stars. I adore "The Inquisitor's Apprentice" and was therefore thrilled that Moriarty gave me a chance to return to its world. While this sequel didn't live up to its predecessor, it's still an enjoyable read. I felt that the book suffered from the fact that protagonist Sacha is merely an observer for most of the first third to half of the book; the driving sense of adventure and discovery of the first book was missing. However, the action picked up by the end of the story, as evil entrepene...
To be honest, my opinion of this book is closer to a 3.5 rating, but I just had to give Moriority credit for doing such a great job creating this world of the Inquisitors. A rather alternative history of New York City with a splash of steampunk and real facts--it creates a fascinating setting that I found more addictive than the plot. But, hey, it's a kids book and I really do think that tween/young teen age group would like this more than I. Because, yes, I do think an intelligent reader will b...