Tuesday, March 2, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Conductors by Nicole Glover

 


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 2, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.      

The Conductors is the start of a new Historical Fantasy series by debut author Nicole Glover.  It's a novel that I'd heard some other authors talking about a bunch of months back, and so I placed a request on NetGalley hoping to get early access.  The book combines a noir-like murder mystery plot with a historical setting of post-Civil War Black Philadelphia and adds in magic as a very real and known part of this version of our world: magic of course, that is practiced differently by Blacks and Whites (with threats of imprisonment or death for Blacks to appropriate White magic, of course).  The combination of subgenre I like (Noir) with fantasy and real world elements combined to really intrigue me.  

And The Conductors very much delivers on that promise, consisting of a mostly excellent murder mystery plot, with a really strong protagonist to go along with some very solid side characters, all reflecting the real life situation facing freed Blacks in Reconstruction-Era America.  It's a story that drew me in from the start, with the storytelling creating a world that feels utterly real and a plot that pretty much worked from beginning to end.  And best of all, there's places for this story to go in the future, with a sequel apparently due to come in November, and I cannot wait.  

------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Hetty Rhodes escaped from slavery with her magic, but lost her sister Esther in the process.  Afterwards, searching for Esther, Hetty, along with a fellow escaped slave Benjy, became a Conductor on the Underground Railroad, using her and Benjy's magic to help other slaves escape to freedom in Philadelphia.  But Hetty never found Esther and the war ended with supposed freedom for all the slaves.  

Not that Freedom has given Blacks in Philadelphia, or elsewhere in the US, lives anywhere close to perfect - Whites still bar them from their own parts of society, banning Blacks from practicing the wand magic of sorcery that Whites use full well, and are certainly willing to kidnap Blacks or worse for their own purposes.  But still, the Blacks of the city have formed their own community and have established lives for themselves, through it all, and find happiness where they can. 

In this city, Hetty, alongside her now-husband Benjy, uses her magic and skills to help her fellow Blacks with their problems, problems they all know the authorities have no interest in dealing with - crimes, kidnappings, and even murders.  But when on of Hetty and Benjy's friends is murdered - and worse, marked with a cursed seal of magic from their plantation past - Hetty finds herself dealing with a mystery that makes her question everything and everyone she cares about...and the life she thinks she understands....
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The Conductors is told from the third person view of its protagonist, Hetty, as she investigates the murder mystery she comes across, one that makes her question everything she knows about her friends and what really goes on in Black Philadelphia, just like in a typical noir.  It contains flashbacks to Hetty's past to show what made her who she is, with the flashback interludes placed in specific spots to tie into Hetty's present actions.  And like many a fantasy noir, there are multiple magic systems involved, with our protagonist and her allies using their own magic in various ways to help each other, when the institutional law will not.  

The difference between this and typical fantasy noir of course is that the setting is Reconstruction-Era Philadelphia (specifically, Black Philadelphia), and while this world features magic and our world does not, all the existing prejudices and discrimination and worse of our world make a major impact.  So of course, the Whites have their own magic system that they ban Blacks from learning or using.  Of course, Whites turn a blind eye to harms done to the Black community - when they're not the one committing them, like trying to kidnap Blacks for the purposes of slavery in name only. 

And then there are the less obvious implications for many people.  So you have Blacks with lighter skin who will attempt to pass to try and avoid all of the above, even if it prevents them from associating with their own friends and family.  You have freed former slaves who may have had families in the past who were long lost and are then forced to choose between starting a new family or trying to find the old....and hoping that their old family hasn't started a new family in their stead.  And you have freed Blacks who take advantage of "freedom" to try and jump as many levels in society as they can quickly vs others who don't quite trust the possibility and are more cautious.  It's a tremendously real setting and Glover makes the realities of it to the reader very clear.  

That setting would be wasted if this book didn't have great characters, particularly its protagonist (again, this is a Noir) and it absolutely does.  Hetty is a really fun protagonist - a woman who cares for people but still pines for the person she's lost in her escape - her sister - and who insists that her relationship with Benjy is entirely for appearances only.  She's self-assured enough to quit her stitching job with the confidence that she can make money stitching on her own, so when she faces a new request for help, be that tracking down a missing girl or solving a murder, she leaps right in - little questions asked (no matter the danger).  Her husband Benjy follows her lead, using his strength to aid her while remaining kind, while Hetty's group of friends - who of course become suspects in the main plot - are all really well done, especially as more and more about them is revealed.  It's a great cast of characters and I really loved Hetty, Benjy, and their friends and I look forward to seeing more of most of them as the series continues.

Really the only negative I can say about this one is that the motive behind the revealed antagonist is kind of underwhelming, and some of the red herrings brought up by the plot don't quite make sense in light of it.  But everything else is done so well, with this world being so fresh and yet real in its rooting in history, and a marriage of genre to history in a way that I haven't seen often done before.  Highly recommended.  

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