Before The Devil Breaks You

New York City. 1927. Lights are bright. Jazz is king. Parties and wild. And the dead are coming.

After battling a supernatural sleeping sickness that nearly eliminated two of their own, the Diviners have had enough. They’re more determined than ever to uncover the mystery behind their extraordinary powers, even as they face off an all-new terror. Out on Ward’s Island, far from the city’s bustle, sits a mental hospital haunted by the lost souls of people long forgotten – ghosts who have unusual and dangerous ties to the man in the stovepipe hat, also known as the King of Crows.

With terrible accounts of murder and possession flooding in, and New York City on the verge of panic, the Diviners must brave the sinister ghosts invading the asylum, a fight that will bring them face-to-face with the King of Crows. But as the explosive secrets of the past come to light, loyalties and friendships will be tested, love will hang in the balance and the Diviners will question all that they’ve ever known.

Heart-pounding action and terrifying moments will leave you breathless in the third book of the Diviners series by number one New York Times bestselling author Libba Bray.

Well. This was quite a ride.

The Diviners series by Libba Bray is a commentary on the state of current American politics wrapped up in a 1920s paranormal thriller. Though the novels have always been explicitly political – the first looked at how the roaring twenties were a reaction to what many felt were the broken promises of the First World War and in the second, Bray addressed immigration by delving into the effects of the Chinese exclusion act, the first federal law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from entering the United States – in book #3, Before The Devil Breaks You (the first Diviners novel to come out in a post-Trump America), Bray is relentless.

Before The Devil Breaks You, ostensibly a book about a group of paranormally powered teenagers fighting to save New York from a horde of murderous zombie ghosts (they are definitely incorporeal but have been known to eat people), is actually a battle for the future of American society. Will we lean towards tolerance and inclusion, or away into fear, anger and violence?

Sounding familiar? It certainly should.

In book #3 our various factions are more divided than they have ever been. Trust has broken down completely between Uncle Will and the Diviners, leaving he and Margaret Walker excluded from the main events of the novel, which, honestly, is more than they deserve. Reliable liars from the start, whether they are truly evil or not – and the point of this book, if anything, is that question – Will and Margaret have been rumbled and the mistakes of their past have truly come back to haunt them. Literally. The city is swarming with ghosts. But the fact is, whether you agree with their actions or not – I’m leaning towards not – like everyone else in this shit show, Margaret and Will were only trying to build the America they wanted to see. They thought they were doing good, and whether they actually were is a question both of them – and the Diviners and us, the readers – are all still trying to answer.

Mabel falls into a similar trap. Her desire for personal glory – prefaced by a genuine need to do good in the world – leads her to join with an organisation called The Six. To many, The Six is an anarchist organisation and perhaps even a dangerous one, whereas to others, they are pioneers of human rights, fighting for those who don’t have a voice in society. Their methods veer into some pretty terrifying territory, and again as the reader we are prompted to ask: do the ends justify the means?

Honestly, it’s too soon to tell.

Before The Devon Breaks You is a great addition to a really noteworthy series. It’s not perfect – there are in my opinion too many primary characters at this point, and the close third person plot skips around a lot, sometimes focusing on multiple people in a single chapter, which I’m not crazy about. But the overarching themes of the series are so relevant and interesting, and the plot pacey enough that none of the issues bothered me too much. And my primary prolem with book #2, the serious lack of Evie, was more than rectified in this round.

Can’t wait for book #4, though past experience with Libba Bray means I am scared for everybody, and particularly any Diviners who may have ended book #3 in need of some redemption. We all know how you get that…