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    The Ruby In the Smoke
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    The Ruby In the Smoke
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    The Ruby In the Smoke
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Ruby In the Smoke

    Written by Philip Pullman

    Narrated by Anton Lesser

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In search of clues to the mystery of her father’s death, 16-year-old Sally Lockhart ventures into the shadowy underworld of Victorian London. Pursued by villains at every turn, the intrepid Sally finally uncovers two dark mysteries–and realizes that she herself is the key to both.

    "In Dickensian fashion, Pullman tells the story of 16-year-old Sally Lockhart, who becomes involved in a deadly web of events as she searches for a mysterious ruby. The novel is a page turner, peopled with despicable hags, forthright heroes, and children living on the underbelly of 19th-century London. The story’s events are exciting, with involved plotting. Settings and characterizations are exquisitely drawn. The first entry in a planned trilogy."–(starred) Booklist. Reading level: 6.7.

    From the Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 8, 2004
    ISBN9781400085132
    Unavailable
    The Ruby In the Smoke
    Author

    Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman (b. 1946) is one of the world’s most acclaimed children’s authors, his bold, brilliant books having set new parameters for what children’s writing can say and do. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, installments of which have won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. In 2003, the trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read competition to find the nation’s favorite book, and in 2005 he was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature. In 2007, Northern Lights became a major Hollywood film, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Pullman has published nearly twenty books, and when he’s not writing he likes to play the piano (badly), draw, and make things out of wood.

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    Reviews for The Ruby In the Smoke

    4/5

    1,052 ratings56 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A mystery involving a 16-year-old girl, her recently-deceased father's past and his shipping business, an asian triad, a handsome young photographer who isn't great with money, a really nasty old woman, a ruby, and a fair amount of opium. Not a bad read; the story was enjoyable enough, but I wasn't engaged to the extent that I feel I need to read the rest of the series.
    • 4/5
      Engrossing and vivid, with strong characters and a plot full of intrigue and action. I particularly enjoyed how Sally, who could've resigned herself to a life of being the poor downtrodden relative, firmly takes charge of her fate and helps unravel the mystery behind the gem of the title (and all its related deaths).
    • 3/5
      I think this maybe the first Pullman novel I've read. I have several of them on my to-be-read shelves, but I've not read one yet...very good story. I am looking forward to the remainder of the series.
    • 3/5
      A fun novel to read, but I never really got much idea of her character, and mixed up her two young men. Fun side characters and good settings, but the plot never really captured me.
    • 4/5
      The Sally Lockhart Trilogy is wonderfully entertaining. My inner 12 year old loves them. Please don't judge these books by the horrible "romance" type covers. They are smart, funny and adventuresome.
    • 4/5
      Now, this was a good book! Had to read it in one sitting! Although marketed as a YA novel, the gloves are off - it's a gritty, realistic murder-mystery adventure. Our heroine, recently orphaned Sally Lockhart is a very mature, feisty and self-reliant 16, and the villainous characters she encounters while trying to unravel the cryptic clues she receives regarding her father's death and the whereabouts of a fabulous ruby are truly malevolent
    • 3/5
      "Real, fleshed out characters and atmospheric locations effectively described. The evil old lady shouldn't be a threat but she is one of the most menacing characters I've ever come across."
    • 3/5
      Enjoyed the relatively strong young woman as the main character, but overall the story wasn't nearly as compelling as the Golden Compass series.
    • 5/5
      This is the first of Philip Pullman’s Victorian mystery novels featuring Sally Lockhart. She is 16-years-old in this story, her father has just died in a shipwreck, and she finds herself in the middle of nefarious dealings involving a missing ruby, criminal gangs, fraud, piracy, and the opium trade.
      Because the protagonist is young, this is often considered a Young Adult novel. Don’t let this mislead you. This is a well-crafted tale of mystery, murder, and intrigue. The characters are engaging. The prose is exceptional.
      Victorian England is a great setting for stories because of the sharp contrasts it provides -- from the largely illiterate poor working in sweatshops or grubbing a living on the streets of London, to the cultured gentry living on returns from investments of inherited capital. The extraordinary portrayal of this time and the details scattered throughout the scenes in this book make it seem as if they were written by someone who lived there, or who is, at least, intimately familiar with it and can bring it to life for those of us who are not.
      I often find myself uncomfortable putting novels in predefined genre cubbyholes because the best of them often don’t fit. This is one. I think the YA categorization of this particular book and the rest of the series is most inappropriate. Sally is not a typical teenager and she is not a typical Victorian young lady. Neither is she a role model many people would want their kids to emulate, although I, as and adult, found her admirable. She defies convention, questions authority, and does her best in a bad situation.
      The story is dark, at times, darker than I normally prefer, and although a hopeful conclusion comes a bit unexpectedly, it is not a case of “and they all lived happily ever after.”
      In my opinion, this ranks among the best Victorian mystery novels that I have read. The story is suspenseful, the characters are well portrayed and believable, and the protagonist is likeable. I highly recommend it -- for adults. (Some kids may like it, too.)
    • 3/5
      Sally Lockhart's world has been changed utterly. Her father has recently died at sea while checking on interests of his company in India. Sally is now forced to live with one of her bitter relatives who appears to resent Sally's existence. And then a mysterious note arrives that seems to indicate that there is more to Sally's father's death than meets the eye. Suddenly, Sally is pulled into a mystery that dates back years and encompasses a strange cast of characters as well as a ruby worth more than anyone could imagine.A decent YA Victorian era mystery. Sally is an enjoyable character with none of the typical accomplishments a girl of the period would have and is all the more likable because of it. The cast of characters that surround Sally are delightful and Pullman puts together a short but compelling mystery that leaves me keen to pick up the next novel in this series.
    • 4/5
      Another great read by Pullman. I'm always fascinated by the adult level that he brings to "Young Adult" novels.
    • 5/5
      Throughout the year of 2014, I told myself I'd re-read some of my favourite books from my childhood. This was the first one I picked up as I remember being absolutely addicted to the series way back when. It was just as incredible as I remembered, maybe even more so thanks to finally catching the adult themes and jokes within the book within my adult eyes.What do a man drowning at sea, a heart attack victim and a mysterious message all have in common? Little Sally Lockheart. That's all I'm going to say in regards to the premise of the book. You really do all have to read it and I don't want to give anything away. Even the slightest of details can hint at the final ending of the book.Philip Pullman really is the master storyteller. He keeps things succinct, and yet detailed, explained and yet exciting, and everything ties in with everything else almost far too perfectly. The language he uses is rich and inviting and always urges you to read "just one more" chapter. The heroine is amazing at some things, and yet does have her flaws, which I think makes her just that much more real. Instead of having a mastermind perfect at everything running an investigation, you have a flawed person investigating equally flawed people and so on. One of the main themes of this book is what some people call "the grey area". Not one person or object within this book is either good or evil, they always lie somewhere in between. I love that.The plot is engaging and unique and although everything is tied up neatly at the end, there are some loose threads that aren't explained which makes you want to read the next few books in the series. As if you wouldn't want to anyway, Philip Pullman is a genius. He always has, is, and will always remain, one of my favourite authors of all time.I salute you, my friend. I salute you.
    • 2/5
      Well. Erm. Humm.After meaning to read this book for years, I wanted to like this so much more than I did!!!!! Yes, I am using an excess of punctuation here because I feel like my disappointment is justified. So many readers I know say that this book was one of their favorites; that they wanted to be, or be friends with, Sally Lockhart; that rereading this beloved gem never failed them.My biggest qualm with THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE is that Sally Lockhart feels like the quintessential "un-protagonist." For a character with an eponymous series name and lots written up about her in the back cover synopsis, Sally spends a lot of time off the page. The narration divides its time between Sally, the villains, Jim the plucky errand boy, Frederick the photographer, and who knows who else. While it was not bad that we spent some time following Jim's, Frederick's, the villains' footsteps around, I felt like the synopsis misled me to believe that I'd learn more about Sally, that I'd come to understand how she thinks, how she operates.Alas, not only does Sally not have much narration time, rendering her still unfamiliar to me, but she also doesn't DO much of anything in this book. The synopsis makes her out to be this female wunderkind detective force to be reckoned it, when actually I feel like she does a lot of sitting at home, waiting for others (read: the male characters) to get back from their excursions and fill her in on what they've done. For a character that's supposed to be the protagonist, Sally really feels two steps behind everyone else on this case. Cementing my view that the series was named incorrectly was the fact that Sally basically gets gypped out of having her crowning moment! Through putting herself in an opium-induced trance, she figures out the secret behind the ruby, but it turns out that JIM already figured it out chapters ago, but just didn't tell her for fear of disappointing her or whatnot. Then the climactic scenes occur in which the guys get to do a lot of fighting and Sally is merely hormonal. Puh-lease. I don't care whichever way you spin it, Sally is not "intrepid" for tearfully enduring the consequences of her unknown history and for figuring out something that another character already figured out before her.For a book with a female protagonist, THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE spends a disappointingly disproportionate time showing us that actually it's the boys who still get to do the exciting and essential parts of crime-solving. Feminist I find this book is not. Try Y. S. Lee's impressive The Agency Victorian mystery series if you truly want to see a smart and resourceful teen female detective in action.
    • 4/5
      A book in the tradition of Victorian melodrama set in Victorian England. Reminiscent of "The Sign of Four"; there is a jewel of great price, a missing father, someone who believes that it rightfully belongs to them, and so forth. Different from that story because the protagonist is a determined young woman whose behavior is often rather unwomanly by Victorian standards.There is a good deal of violence in the book, and its aftermath is usually very painful. Very frequently the combatants are more or less unarmed; they carry sticks or had previous careers as boxers. Guns are not common although knives make an appearance.As with Philip Pullman's other books the details, e.g., the speed of the Victorian mail system, are very well evokes.
    • 4/5
      My personal history with this series of books is a bit unusual, I suppose. I saw the TV adaptations of the first two books, then read the third and fourth books and I've recently decided to read the first two. The Ruby in the Smoke is the first book following Sally Lockhart, a spunky 16-year-old in Victorian London (& Oxford, which was lovely as I lived there for a year and it's always nice to hear the names of familiar streets and roads.) It's a historical mystery with real backbone, despite a few flaws.

      I really enjoyed the depth of Pullman's writing - the dialog and the descriptions in particular are packed with details and exquisite. Sally herself is well-developed from the start and extremely likeable. The cast of secondary characters is unevenly written: while Sally's allies are well fleshed out, her enemies are often cartoonish, with very little depth.

      The general plot is good enough, though unnecessarily complex and unrealistic at times, which, combined with the caricatures we are often presented with amongst the 'baddies' makes for a very bizarre story.
      The relationships between the different characters are very nice and warm, I felt very close to them all and my favourite parts often had to do with moments of friendships and Sally learning about her past rather than her escaping one of the clownish characters. Near the middle of the novel, she tries to put her finger on why she feels like she belongs and I found her conclusion particularly moving ('they didn't care that one was a servant and that I was a woman, we were equals here. That was what was different.') and gives an inkling of broader themes explored further in The Tiger in the Well, the third book in the series.

      A word about the audio book, since it's the format I chose: Anton Lesser's narrative is flawless. Overall, a good book, not excellent but very worth reading and a nice introduction to the series and to one of my favourite heroines in literature.
    • 3/5
      I loved His Dark Materials, so I had high expectations for this new series. Maybe I was distracted, but I found the plot not as compelling, but not a bad read.
    • 1/5
      16-year-old Sally Lockhart's father has died. She must fend for herself among some of the seediest and most unsavory characters of London. The book centers on a ruby which brings trouble and on opium dens. I hated this book. I hated the plot and the characters. I will not be reading the second installment of the series even though I have it on hand.
    • 4/5
      Engrossing and vivid, with strong characters and a plot full of intrigue and action. I particularly enjoyed how Sally, who could've resigned herself to a life of being the poor downtrodden relative, firmly takes charge of her fate and helps unravel the mystery behind the gem of the title (and all its related deaths).
    • 4/5
      This was the first Pullman book I read, and I loved it. I'm not sure how realistic a woman like Sally is in Victorian times, but I thought she was awesome anyway. And I had such a crush on Fred.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book a lot but can't recommend it. Well, I can recommend it alone but don't recommend reading any further in the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      This young adult novel, opens with 16 year old Sally Lockhart visiting her deceased father’s shipping firm and accidentally causing one of his associates to die of a heart-attack when she ask him if he knows of the Seven Blessings. The phrase was on a piece of paper dictated by her father before his death and sent to her in secret. Believing that her life is in danger, Sally seeks to determine why her father died, who would like to see her dead, and where to find a mysterious ruby. The novel is set in Victorian London, and quickly Sally becomes entangled in a web of mystery involving murder, illegal opium trading, and a stolen ruby. She also meets a variety of characters along the way--both good and bad--including Frederick and his sister Rosa ( photographer and actress respectively) and Jim, a plucky office boy. Sally is a wonderful character--brave, smart, realistic and pragmatic. Lots of twists and turns keep the reader wanting more. 4 1/2 out of 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      Sally Lockhart, recently orphaned, finds herself suddenly embroiled in a complicated plot wherein multiple people want to either kill her or save her. There are guns, and opium, and diaries, and shipwrecks, and over all it's a pretty good whodunit. A little confusing at times, sure, but full of delightfully memorable characters.
    • 5/5
      The Ruby in the Smoke was the first of four books in the Sally Lockhart series. It is a gripping mystery from the depths of Victorian London. Our heroine is Sally Lockhart and she is trying to solve a mystery. Sally has become an orphan at the age of sixteen, and she has to solve a mystery filled with strange letters, rat- haunted streets and deadly opium dens and at the heart of it all is a ruby that may be cursed. I enjoyed this book very much and I could scarcely put it down. The writing is very descriptive and easily helps the reader put themself in Victorian London. The words go a long way in forming images of the characters for me. It also has a bit of history which just adds to the flavour of the book. A thrilling mystery for teens of all ages!ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1987)A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (1988)ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (1998.01|Teens from Other Times, 1998)1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up (2009.0904|2009, Ages 12↑)
    • 3/5
      Much as I love Pullman, this one just didn't grip me as much. Too much mcguffin chasing and mystery solving, with very 2D bad guys, and loose strings at the end - good for sequils, bad for endings!
    • 2/5
      The first book in a series. The main character Sally Lockhart has been played on tv by Billie Piper and it was her face I pictured as I read it. Unfortunatly that hindered my enjoyment of the story as I'm not a fan of Miss Piper. However I would read more in this series although I wouldn't chase them up. A shame as Philip Pullman is such a good author.
    • 4/5
      Given to me by a travelling BookCrosser from Australia -- has been through 7 BookCrossers before me. Wow! A very well travelled copy of this book!Lovely adventure story for the younger set and for us older folks, too. Pullman can tell a fine tale and creates some great characters with Sally and her associates. I'd picked up
    • 5/5
      ... a place of darkness, under a knotted rope. Three red spots shine on the spot when the moon pulls on the water. Take it. It is clearly yours by my gift, and the laws of England. Antequam haec legis, mortuus ero; utinam ex animo hominum tam celeriter memoria mea discedat.Sally Lockhart's father has died leaving a mystery behind him; a mystery concerning a stolen ruby and shrouded in the smoke of an opium den. An exciting tale of Victorian England and the Far East.
    • 4/5
      1872, London. "Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man." Hard not to be immediately pulled into a story with a sentence like that! In the first of the four Sally Lockhart Mystery novels, having been recently orphaned with her father's ship sinking somewhere in the Orient, sixteen year old Sally finds herself drawn into a saga filled with suspense and mystery. When she asks her late father's associate to explain to her what "the seven blessings" means, he keels over and dies. Soon, an unsavoury woman by the name of Mrs Holland is hot on Sally's trail, though Sally doesn't yet have any idea why. We know of Mrs Holland that she wears too-big brown and grey dentures—having, just before her late husband's casket was closed, reached out to take said dentures out of his mouth, claiming "there's still plenty of wear in those!"—we also know that she's holding a sailor (who's recently nearly escaped sure drowning) prisoner by keeping him drugged with opium. There's a huge ruby in the stakes and the only way Sally can put all the pieces together before it's too late is by literally confronting her worst nightmare in a way no sane parent could ever approve of. With a smart and resourceful heroine and filled with a cast of wonderful, highly coloured characters and non-stop action, this is a very well written tale by the creator of His Dark Materials that keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. I couldn't wait for the follow up, and immediately ordered it from the BookDepository as soon as I'd finished listening to this very well made audiobook.
    • 4/5
      Sally is a teenage girl living in Victorian England when her father dies unexpectedly. A mysterious letter leads her to believe he was murdered and she begins to search for the truth. This mystery has a very Dickensian feel to it. Orphaned girl, villains after her, paths crossing with interesting people from all walks of life; add 300 pages and it might have been mistaken for a female version of Oliver Twist. Sally herself is pretty fantastic. She smart, logical and has a wonderful mind for business. She also refuses to shy away from danger or to get caught up in the petty deceptions of others. When faced with the prospect of living with an awful, controlling woman or heading out into the unknown, she doesn’t hesitant to walk out the door. I don’t know if I’ll continue to read the rest of the books in the series. I enjoyed the first one, but it provides closure and I’m not dying to continue. I do wish I’d read the series when I was younger. I probably would have loved them.
    • 4/5
      Good page turning Victorian thriller, though Sally Lockhart seems a rather unlikely figure. Mrs Holland is one of the most ghastly amoral villains in literature.