Colleen Mondor Reviews The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, Garth Nix (Te­gen Books 978-0-06-323633-2, $19.99, hc, 348pp) March 2023. Cover by Leo Nickolls.

Garth Nix follows up his splendid fantasy adventure The Left-Handed Booksell­ers of London with the further exploits of Merlin, Vivien, Susan, and the extended St. Jacques family in The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. The worldbuilding expands, with more details about the work of the various booksell­ers and how they ‘‘police the Old World’’ and its magical inhabitants. Existing characters become more developed and new ones join the cast as the city of Bath takes center stage and Nix reveals a bit more of his otherworldly version of England.

Things start with a violent bang as a young man is viciously murdered in Bath in 1977. Flashing forward to ‘‘current’’ times, in 1983, an enchanted map is found by the booksellers at Bath’s Small Bookshop as they unpack purchases from a recent estate sale. The Small Bookshop, while an actual retail store, is also owned by the St. Jacques clan and thus a convenient front for magical bookseller activities. So when things suddenly go sideways with the map, and boy do they ever go sideways, the booksellers are present and ready. The prob­lem is that Merlin gets trapped in the map and before anyone has time to figure out its origins or history, they have to mount a rescue mission. That means reaching out to Susan, who is trying to live as normal a life as possible after the events and revelations of the first book. Together, she and Vivien ‘‘jump’’ into the map, find Merlin, and they find out what happened to that unfortunate young man in 1977 and, well, a whole lot more. (If you had ‘‘angry magical serial killer’’ on your 2023 bingo card, this is the book you are waiting for.)

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is packed with all sorts of action from dealing with animated statues, to negotiating with water gods, and get­ting into occasional street altercations with the murderous members of a group of ‘‘irregular’’ Freemasons. There are bookseller politics to negotiate, (which are not always friendly), some research into centuries’ worth of missing people, and lots of questions for Susan about whether or not ‘‘normal’’ is even a possibility anymore. (There’s also lots of eating in Nix’s books, all of it deliciously described and quite mouthwatering.) Fans of the first book are going to be quite pleased with this sequel, and those just discovering the booksellers must get themselves caught up so they can dive right into what’s new. Nix is onto some­thing with this series, and teens who love a solid mystery with fantastical aspects and compelling characters will race right through it.

This review and more like it in the May 2023 issue of Locus.

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