I enjoyed learning about Hetty and Benjy's characters and history more, but the mystery and sub-plots in this one just weren't all that interesting to follow. ( )

It's good just spending time with Hetty and Benjy, she is such a creation and the pair have a charm. But if it wasn't for that this second in the series would drop a star. The action and direction are scatter shot, and even bringing it all together for a flash bang conclusion after a roaring semi-climax doesn't give it the punch of the first in the series. ( )

Unreadable.

I struggled through the first three chapters, but decided that the effort to continually mentally rewrite the text to fix the errors was simply beyond me after reading the first page of the fourth chapter and realising that things weren't going to improve. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed reading THE CONDUCTORS and had been looking forward to reading and reviewing THE UNDERTAKERS. However, I found this story just plodded along, dragging quite a bit in too many places to hold my attention, and the plot and sub-plots were too convoluted to follow at times (or it just wasn't interesting enough to follow). The only good thing, if there is a good thing about this story, was getting to know Hetty and Benjy a bit better. This story simply didn't hold my attention very well and felt rather "meh" by the end.

I received a digital copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ( )

Pros: excellent worldbuilding, fun characters, community, interesting mysteries

Cons:

Henrietta and Benjamin Rhodes’s funeral parlour hasn’t drummed up much business, but their work as sparrow and finch, solving murders and mysteries, has them questioning all the fires that have been breaking out around town. Fires that seem to have magical help. Fires the local firefighters aren’t putting out. A fire killed Raimond Duval, a friend of their friends. The most recent fire burned down an entire street except for the house of Valentine Duval, Raimond’s son. The Rhodes soon learn of stolen goods, a hidden treasure, and discover one of their old enemies is in town.

The book takes place a few months after the events of The Conductors. While you don’t need to have read that to understand this book, it does introduce all of the characters and their interpersonal relationships, which along with the mystery is what makes these books so fun.

I love that there’s a loving couple at the heart of the book. I love that Hetty has several female friends to talk to about everything. I love seeing the Rhodes interact with their group of friends. This sense of community is strangely missing in a lot of fantasy literature and it’s so wonderful to read.

The setting is Pennsylvania in the late 1800s, with several flashbacks to some of the jobs the couple undertook as part of the Vigilance Society (basically the underground railway). It’s a world where magic is real, and most cultures have their own kind of magic, with white Americans using wands for sorcery and the black Americans using celestial magic. In the background are mentions that laws are being considered to limit the use and teaching of celestial magic. Magic is integrated into every aspect of life, showing up at baseball games, balls, gunfights and for daily tasks. There’s also potion craft, which one of Hetty’s friends excels at.

The book touches on many goings on so it’s not always apparent what’s part of the central mystery and what isn’t. Much like real life the characters learn things in offhand and unexpected ways.

This is a great series and I highly recommend it. ( )