Before the His Dark Materials series[*], Pullman wrote a number of books, including a series of Victorian mystery adventures. I only found out about these a couple of days ago, but The Ruby in the Smoke is the first in that series, and it's a cracking tale full of plucky heroes and heroines. Not as dense as the His Dark Materials books (though I've seen the other three in the bookstore, and they're certainly thicker than this one!) but it reads very well and moves along at a rapid clip; nice, sly sense of humour, too, and a reasonably satisfying sense of grittiness and real danger.
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[*] Last reading (and prior) here.
