"Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy..."
Malcolm has a calm personality and has an advantage in that his father runs an inn called The Trout, on the banks of the Thames. Malcom and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, but during one unusual winter, Malcolm catches wind of something new and potentially dangerous. He finds a secret message and the spy it was intended for finds him. Drawn into a web of intrigue, Malcolm sees reason for suspicion everywhere, and everyone seeming to be interested in the same thing: a baby girl named Lyra.
This book is a prequel to The Golden Compass and I think it makes the most sense if you're already familiar with that trilogy of books, or at least the world that Pullman has created. I really enjoyed this book, although I would hesitate to give it to a really young reader. I found it more violent than The Golden Compass and there were a few parts that, if I had read them when I was 10, would have given me nightmares. As an adult, I found some parts to be a little much.
I did really like the adventure and intrigue in this story and how the plot kept building, along with the tension. You don't have a good sense of whether or not Malcolm is going to come out of this completely intact, and while I trusted Pullman . . . well, I wasn't sure at times which direction the story was going to take. I find the original trilogy to be better, but it's a treat to be able to revisit this world again.
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