No Man’s Land

Like many a classic Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe tale, this addictive hardboiled fantasy from Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Morgan (Altered Carbon) takes its attitude from the disillusionment triggered by WWI. Here the horrors of the trenches haunt the sleepy streets of an alternate post-war Britain that is being rapidly overgrown by a wickedly enchanted forest. Veteran Duncan Silver is a successful “woodsman,” a hunter who retrieves children stolen into this forest by the Huldu, elven beings who leave magical changelings in place of kidnapped infants. Hired to retrieve Mimi Rush, Silver soon runs afoul of the Forest Commission, the government department working to fight the encroaching tide of sprite-infested trees. Still, he manages to quickly dispose of the changeling left in Mimi’s place, track down the time and place of substitution, and then raid the forest to find her. But Mimi is a captive of Mebhuranon, a queen of the Huldu, and Silver has many other Huldu enemies seeking revenge on him, making his mission especially dangerous. Morgan pits the forces of ancient magic and modern warfare against each other and studs the plot with clever clues leading up to the successful if bitter end of Silver’s quest. Readers will be hooked. (Oct.)