Shadows Linger contains two related storylines that intersect about halfway through. In the first, Raven and Darling have escaped to Juniper, a decrepit town in the frozen North where the malicious servants of a mysterious black castle pay for bodies -- dead or alive. In the second storyline, something in Juniper catches the Lady's eye, and she orders the Black Company to march north.
It turns out (milder spoiler alert) that the black castle is a tool of the Dominator, who is struggling to break free from his 400-year-old imprisonment. As bad as the Lady is, the Dominator is worse (he's not called "the Gentleman"), and lesser evils and their erstwhile foes forsake their own enmities to combat the threat.
Shadows Linger is less epic and more constrained than The Black Company, but its focus mostly improves the series. While the black castle is an ad hoc opponent, Cook imbues it with the right level of mystery and menace.
In addition, it's the black castle's corrupting influence -- particularly on a cowardly barkeep named Shed -- that animates the novel's most interesting conflict. In a way, the entire Black Company trilogy is a study in the effects of proximity to evil. The hardened men of the Company, backed by an iron-willed loyalty to their brotherhood, tend to resist corruption. Shed is not so fortunate. But his decline, and his desperate hope for redemption, represents a miniature version of the more global struggle against evil in which the Company participates.
Where Shadows Linger falls short is its gradual estrangement from the grittier realism of the first book. In The Black Company, the Company's men were most familiar with the ordinary details of daily life, and their few encounters with true magic inspired awe and confusion. In Shadows Linger, however, the exotic becomes more common-place, and familiarity removes much of the wildness that made the Lady and her minions so enthralling. This problem becomes more severe in the last book. But its roots can be found here.
Copyright © 2009 Steven Wu 