Kirkus Reviews

A pair of teen detectives bops between London and Cairo in a steampunk adventure that would probably make a better movie than it does a book. Octavia Nightingale and Sebastian Tweed return in this sequel to The Lazarus Machine (2012), solving mysteries in a Victorian London jam-packed with automatons powered by human souls and carriages running on Tesla turbines. Their search for Octavia's kidnapped mother entangles them in a larger mystery, with missing scientists and Egyptophile cultists around every corner. Each solved puzzle reveals a further complication: traitors, lizard people, rocket launchers--even a secret world. Perhaps the number of threads is too many to keep under control; some characters are dropped abruptly, while one major arc comes to a character-building ending without ever developing through a beginning or middle. The overall mystery is impenetrable, but the set dressing of "vacuum tubes and wiring...tools and gears, clocks, glass beakers filled with strange liquids, and disassembled automatons" makes the right backdrop for a novel that climaxes with an airship-vs.-ornithopter dogfight over London. Purists take note: Among the myriad errors and inconsistencies are copious anachronisms detracting from the Victorian feel. Busy, but at least there's a death ray. (Steampunk. 15-17)

School Library Journal (Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2014)

Gr 8 Up-Set in an alternative Victorian London, this sequel to The Lazarus Machine (PYR, 2012) continues the adventures of odd-couple Sebastian Tweed and Octavia Nightingale. The teens both have missing parents and are being raised by the state and trained as spies. Tweed is also coming to terms with his discovery that he is actually a simulacrum of the great Sherlock Holmes, whose soul was put into his body as a baby. Humorous banter and lively action scenes keep the story entertaining as the heroes journey to Egypt (on a luxury airship, no less) to try to solve the murder of Nikola Tesla and prevent a war. There are a lot of thrills, a hint of romance, and a mystery. Purchase this one where the first book is popular or where there is heavy demand for creative steampunk. Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA

Horn Book (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

The crisp dialogue between Tweed and Nightingale (The Lazarus Machine), romantically entangled teenage secret Ministry agents, is this second volume's stand-out feature. A tangled mystery springing from Nikola Tesla's murder is set in a steampunk world filled with airships, deathrays, an unknown race dwelling below the earth, and plenty of action, albeit of the interesting rather than plausible sort.