DEN OF THIEVES

The third installment of Cat Royal’s adventures requires some stamina, featuring as it does even more activity, even more spirited friends and villainous-if-complex enemies and even more exotic terrain. Cat’s home in the Drury Lane is being torn down. Her patron, the historical character Richard Brinsley Sheridan, spirits her off to Paris so she can learn something of the revolution there. Being Cat, she is constantly in and out of some very difficult situations (she is in imminent danger of death at least three times) and not only finds many of her old friends still around her (Johnny the political artist, Pedro the once-enslaved violinist, Lizzie the duke’s daughter) but some new ones, including J-L, the enigmatic “king” of thieves near Notre Dame. She even gets to fulfill an ill-thought pledge to the loathsome Billy Shepherd when she is smuggled back into London. The joys of performance and the shifting fortunes of political rebellion are laid out as lessons with a heavier hand than before, although Cat’s confusion about her attraction to the many young men in her life rings achingly true. (dramatis personae, “Cat’s Glossary) (Historical fiction. 10-14)