It must be incredibly difficult for an author to maintain the momentum built up in a first novel so that it will carry over into the second. Game of Cages is not only as good as the first book in this series,
Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel, in some ways it may even surpass that great debut.
Raymond Lilly is back in the real world working in retail. Retail? Ray? Yep, but not for long. An investigator for the Twenty Palace Society comes by the store where Ray is working and convinces his boss that Raymond's mother needs him immediately. What Catherine Little really wants is for Ray to accompany her to an auction where a predator is to be sold to the highest bidder. Once Ray gets in the car with Catherine it's non-stop action for these two people who are trying to keep a predator from being let loose on the world. Unfortunately, when Catherine and Ray reach their destination they find that the predator has escaped from the group that bought it and they have to try to find it and destroy it even before they know what this predator can do.
Harry Connolly took quite a few risks with this book and turned a plot that is not exactly brand new into a story I honestly had a hard time putting down. First he has used a 45 year old woman with a husband and two daughters as the other character working with Raymond. By giving me a character I didn't expect it put me a little on edge about how she would react. Would she be a help or a hindrance, what could she contribute to the story? Second risk: there is a huge body count in this book. And that leads directly to the third risk of having Ray act in ways which are normally viewed as wrong. Raymond and Catherine are pretty much on their own trying to cope with the magic and track down this predator until the Society sends a peer to kill it.
So why 4 stars instead of 5? First, a device Connolly uses to help readers keep up with a lot of characters is having Raymond give people nicknames: Well-Spoken, Tattoo, Stork Neck, the Fellows and I needed that to keep people straight in my mind. Next, the action all takes place in a very small geographic location so there wasn't much variation in locale. Fourth, Annalise was a long time in making an appearance in this story and I would have liked to see her sooner because she is such a dynamic part of this team. And last, I still didn't learn quite as much about the Twenty Palace Society as I would have liked.
Would I recommend this book to someone who enjoys reading action loaded books about magic? You bet I would! There is even an excerpt from book three in the back of this one. Harry Connolly states in the Acknowledgements that this was not an easy book to write. After reading it I can certainly sympathize with him on that, but it was very successfully done and a fine second book for the series.