This is the third in Cynthia Ward's 'Blood-Thirsty Agent' series, and it delivers the location that we hoped for after the second, 'The Adventure of the Dux Bellorum'. After all, the Germans have got into the Hollow Earth, here a reimagining of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar, so every reader of that book surely wanted to visit in this follow-up. Ward is more than happy to oblige and, while we start out in Europe, we soon find our way with Lucy Harker to Pellucidar and stay there for most of the story.

I'm a big fan of the Pellucidar books, though it's been far too long since I've read them. In fact, it's been far too long since I've read any Burroughs and really ought to dive back into them. One good reason to do that is that I didn't recognise the opening reference. Of course, there are references here to all sorts of period fiction and I catch a lot of them, but I didn't recall Bernard Custer, who's an American adventurer. He's currently confined in the royal dungeon in Lustadt after seizing the throne of Lutha, freeing that small European nation from the Austrian yoke. His people are crying out for King Bernhard.

I did, at least catch the reference to Rudolf Rassendyll, though I don't remember having read 'The Prisoner of Zenda'. Again, I should. However, Ward threw it in as a clue, which I didn't grasp, as the story of Bernard Custer, going by Barney, and the liberation of Lutha, is a Ruritanian romance by, it's that man again, Edgar Rice Burroughs, called 'The Mad King'. Ward trawled all this in because Barney's love interest in that book is Princess Emma Von Der Tann and Ward's entrance in this one to the Hollow Earth is under the Castle Von Der Tann. It's all neatly done.

While Mycroft Holmes, or M, the leader of MI6, is there to persuade King Bernhard to allow Lutha to become a British protectorate, he's also there because his wife and Lucy's mother, Mina Harker, has vanished on an intelligence mission. He believes the Germans have her and are keeping her in Pellucidar. He tasks Lucy with getting her back, with the help of her half-brother, Lt. Quincy Morris Holmes, of the Royal Tripod Corps. Why M's son rather than the upiór Clarimel Stein, Mina's lover and usual partner in adventure? M sums that up with, "Your mother must never meet Miss Stein."

And so we go. This third adventure doesn't feel as hectic as the second, which packed a ridiculous amount of everything into a hundred and fifty or so pages. That book was action-packed from the first moment to the last and Ward bounced us around Europe as the story demanded it. Here, she does what she needs to do to set the stage for her Hollow Earth, then sends Lucy off on what feels exquisitely like a straight line. Now, it's a long line and a lot happens on it, but it doesn't deviate a heck of a lot until it gets to where we now realise Ward was always taking us in a number of ways. I have to say that I'm even more eager to dive into book four than I already was.

Much of what you might expect to happen happens, as Lucy drives her stolen lobster lorry through the wilds of Pellucidar. They're another of Dr. Krüger's inventions, with Martian heat-rays on each front seat and designs clearly based on what he stole from the British on the 'Titanic' during book one, 'The Adventure of the Incognita Countess'. They have legs like the British leg-lorries but have claws on the front instead of tentacles. This one serves Lucy well.

The most obvious need is for a local character and she turns up in the form of An the Mezop, who serves as the naked guide of the title. She's not really naked, clad in a sleeveless fur tunic, but she comes a heck of a lot closer than anyone else we've met in this alternative Edwardian universe. It certainly has an effect. "Standing close to attractive people in a state of undress has a predictable effect on my libido," Lucy tells us and An soon makes her attraction known. Apparently, Pellucidar doesn't have any sort of taboo about same-sex relationships, which warrants good conversation. After all, we know from Lucy and Clarimel that even active lesbians aren't immune to the morals of their times.

There's also a need for action and Ward provides that, too, in a number of ways; not least through Dr. Krüger's dinosaur army. This is now the book I'll recommend to anyone who saw the 'Iron Sky' movies and wished that someone would make something like that without the comedy. Yes, I was impeccably entertained by the sieg heiling T-Rex in the trailer for 'Iron Sky 2' but it was every bit as silly a movie as it promised to be. This is where we can find real adventure with dinosaurs and mechanical men and the German army, even if it's from a world war earlier. Those movies proved that budget could be found for this sort of material. Why hasn't someone adapted this series yet?

What I really want to talk about here is the ending, which, of course, I can't, so I won't. It's a tough ending, in a number of ways, but it makes total sense and it ties into an undercurrent that's been resonating for a while. My favourite definition of steampunk is that we rewound time to the point where we could move forward again and deliver what we were promised. There's a lot of that here with Lucy an outsider from society in many ways, not least as a dhampir and a lesbian, but working for the largest authority on the planet, as a secret agent for the British Empire. There's plenty to change on a grand scale within that context to get to where we should be and Lucy's now learning just how much.

Book four is currently the last in the series and, as far as I'm aware, it's intended to stay that way. It's 'The Adventure of the Golden Woman' and it takes us and the Empire forward fifteen years to a very different world, expanding in scope yet again. I'm looking forward to it! ~~ Hal C F Astell

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