Cas­san­dra Clare’s grip­ping fol­low up to Sword Catch­er picks up on a cliffhang­er: Kel Saren, the body dou­ble of the crown prince, is embroiled in deci­pher­ing who is behind the griz­zly slaugh­ter that shook the gath­ered nobles in the Shin­ing Gallery; crown Prince Conor has com­mit­ted him­self to his duties whole­heart­ed­ly, turn­ing away from his pre­vi­ous lifestyle; and Lin Cast­er, Ashkar physi­cian, strug­gles under the title of God­dess Reborn that she claimed, des­per­ate to access the books denied to her in her com­mu­ni­ty to search for a cure for her dear friend. 

Once again, read­ers of The Rag­pick­er King explore the flour­ish­ing port city of Castel­lane, where unease sim­mers through the streets after the shock­ing vio­lence that occurred in the Shin­ing Gallery. Though the book takes place in the lav­ish halls of the wealthy and the less-savory alleys of the Maze all sit­u­at­ed in Castel­lane, the world itself feels large and expan­sive. Clare does this by cre­at­ing dis­tinct cul­tures, lan­guages, and tra­di­tions for the nations that all vie for polit­i­cal con­trol of Castel­lane and the thriv­ing com­merce there­in. The read­er watch­es some of these macro pow­er strug­gles play out through the activ­i­ties of the Rag­pick­er King’s com­pa­tri­ots as they attempt to uncov­er the truth, for the sake of Castellane’s future. Lies, sub­terfuge, and care­ful­ly curat­ed masks keep their ene­mies — and their poten­tial allies — out of sight.

The Ashkar, a small, monothe­is­tic, and mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ty that dwells in a walled city with­in the city (a ghet­to) con­tin­ue to car­ry with them a strong sense of Jew­ish­ness. Here Lin feels the ten­sion of the safe­ty of her close-knit com­mu­ni­ty with a sense of restric­tion; it is only when she claims the pow­er of the God­dess Reborn that she is allowed access to books that offer life-sav­ing knowl­edge. But with this comes a mount­ing pres­sure to per­form the mir­a­cles her com­mu­ni­ty has been wait­ing for: an end to exile and wan­der­ing. She finds her­self torn between the famil­iar Ashkar world and its demands and the needs of the wider world. For Lin, her life is more than the walled Ashkar com­mu­ni­ty, because as a physi­cian she meets with patients all over the city, and it is through this work that she finds her­self once again drawn into close prox­im­i­ty to Prince Conor. The con­nec­tion between the two is clan­des­tine and one that feels futile from the start, as they are sep­a­rat­ed by duty and community. 

As secrets and schemes pro­pel the plot for­ward, each char­ac­ter is forced to rec­on­cile with their choic­es, and the read­er begins to won­der about inten­tion­al­i­ty. What role do good inten­tions play if a good friend is kept in the dark? Do inten­tions out­weigh out­comes? As Kel, Lin, and the Rag­pick­er King’s asso­ciates attempt to thwart the dark polit­i­cal and mag­i­cal forces that gath­er at the fringes of their king­dom, it becomes clear that it will take more than the crown Prince and the Rag­pick­er King to thwart these foes.