It arrived on my doormat when I was still in the middle of my 'I've had enough of reading kids' books' phase and I was in the middle of reading The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo, which I hadn't read before because, you guessed it, I was too busy reading kids' books to find time for the grown-up stuff!
Anyway, I unpackaged it and had a look at the blurb on the back. And I was immediately hooked. Djinns. I've been rather partial to djinns ever since reading a little AS Byatt story. So that got me interested. Plus there was the heroine's name: Necessity Bonehill. Dickens sprung to mind and now I was definitely reeled in.
All of which meant finishing the Larsson as fast as possible.
So I blitzed it to within the last twenty or so pages just before going to bed one night. Huge mistake. It was probably the writer in me, but all I could think about all night long were alternative endings which involved either that basement of horrors being re-opened and used by a certain female member of the Vanger gang or the same lady equipping Harald's shack to the same ends. Either way, it rather spoiled my appreciation of The Girl but it put me in the perfect frame of mind for The Curse.
So what's the Bonehill Curse all about? Necesity Bonehill is a misfit. She's a tough, feisty, tomboy of a girl in an all too girly, girls' Dickensian style boarding school called Rookery Heights. She's been parked there by unloving parents and the only person who sees her point of view is the mad old Sergeant Major Morris, ex of the mysterious Fourth Hinderton Rifles. At the beginning of the book she receives a parcel from an uncle. It contains a dirty old bottle, carved with strange and horrifying figures, and accompanied by the instructions that she mustn't open it.
Well, what would any self-respecting rebel do in those circumstances? Of course, she opens is and in so doing unleashes the djinn Zaakiel who is bent on destroying humanity in punishment for what he sees as their despicable and immoral behaviour.
From that point we follow Ness on her travels to London and beyond, in search of her parents, the djinn and anyone or anything that can help her find them. This brings her allies from unlikely places: a bunch of secretive moorish warriors pledged to destroy all the djinns and a cast of mostly elderly men and women straight out of Dickens such as Reverend Cullwirthy, Mrs Quilfy, Henry Lumm, Corporal Grubb and the delightful creation, Mr Evenyule Scrabsnitch.
I think half the charm of this book lies in the way Jon has melded a story that, by rights, belongs in the Arabian Nights, with an expertly drawn Dickensian setting. And it is expertly drawn because what Jon takes from Dickens is the light stuff: the funny, grotesque, loveable, infuriating minor characters that makes us laugh and provide welcome relief when a Dickens story gets too dark.
The other half of the book's charm is the way it's written. This is an action packed, roller-coaster of a book. The blank pages and little proverbs and aphorisms between each chapters act as literary palate cleanser but they also drive you to read the next chapter and the next one and the next.
And you know something? I didn't have that problem or worrying all night about an alternative ending for The Bonehill Curse. Maybe it was because the ending came late and tied everything up. Indeed it tied everything up so neatly I was at a loss as to how Jon was going to follow it. Unless of course he takes a leaf out of another Victorian's book.....
Anyone up for Arthur Conan Doyle next?
(And while you decipher that I'm off to find Jon's two earlier novels, Mortlock and the Demon Collector. Oh yes, he's hooked me. Totally!)
The nice folk at Bloomsbury provided this review copy. But if you want one of your own please click below and Amazon will contribute a small amount to the maintenance of this blog.
