Some Gems Never Tarnish

If you’ve never encountered Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke before, reading it is like stumbling across a lost treasure.

First published in 1985, a decade before The Golden Compass ever saw the light of day, Pullman’s mystery series featuring 16-year-old Sally Lockhart provides a glimpse of a sort of proto-Lyra Belacqua.

The Ruby in the Smoke was the first of four Sally Lockhart mysteries, all set in Victorian London. In this first book, Sally is trying to solve the mystery of her father’s death. Pullman aficionados will know that all of the Sally Lockhart books were well-received when they were first published, and they have never been out of print. However, if you weren’t paying close attention at the time to children’s literature, it would have been possible to miss them; another decade would pass before Pullman became really well known, thanks to his Dark Materials trilogy. When it was first published in the United States in 1997, The Ruby in the Smoke was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Booklist Editor’s Choice, and it was nominated for an Edgar Award.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf has chosen to republish all four Sally Lockhart mysteries at the same time. The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, The Tiger in the Well, and The Tin Princess are now available in very handsome and reasonably priced paperback editions--just in time for holiday gift giving.