Harry, and everybody else in the United Kingdom, including Jazz, wants to exact revenge on those who killed their friend. When they discover the mayor of London made promises in the press to clean up "those nest of rats that live beneath the streets of our fair city," Harry concocts a plan to rob people he knows to be friends of the mayor. It's on the second of these jobs that Jazz interrupts Terence as he's robbing the same house. She also discovers a photo of all her Uncles in this house - a photo that was taken by Harry Fowler and in which she recognizes the face of her father staring back at her.
What's the mysterious connection that ties her father, Terence, The Uncles, and Harry all together? If Jazz wants to live she is going to have to find out. The answer, when she finds out, is as amazing as it fantastical, and results in her whole world being changed. This, like everything else about this story, makes perfect sense for the world that the authors have created for her story to take place in. The majority of the people in Mind The Gap, and the majority of the locations for that matter, are the same as they are in our version of the world, yet running like a small stream through it all is a sliver of magic.
Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have created a world in Mind The Gap where magic is alive and well, but so are cellular phones. It's this mixture that makes the story so effective, for it is far easier for us as readers to suspend our disbelief when there are so many things we can identify with in a story. They act like anchors that help us to hold on when the magic in the story starts to blossom.
What really makes this story work is the wonderful job they have done in creating the characters. We see the world through the eyes of Jazz. From the time we enter into her head until we leave her at the end of the story, everything she does is perfectly normal within the context of what the authors have created for her. From the first moment we meet her, Jazz is a completely believable character. Because we believe in her, it’s easy to accept the rest of the characters as well.
Mind The Gap is part fantasy, part mystery, and part suspense story. The authors have done a great job balancing the three elements and braiding them together into one exciting read.
You can buy a copy of Mind The Gap directly from Random House Canada or through an online retailer like Amazon Canada.
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