By Catherine Cheek
If Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere married a Hollywood blockbuster and had a child, Mind the Gap by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon might be the result. This dark, fast paced adventure is in love with London, especially with London’s Underground and what might lie beneath.
Jasmine “Jazz” and her mother have been haunted all her life by the Uncles, mysterious men who both care for them and act as wardens. Her mother has always distrusted the Uncles and taught Jazz to do the same. Jazz’s paranoia pays off when she comes home one day and discovers that the Uncles have murdered her mother. Her mother’s last words, written in her own dying blood, are “Jazz hide forever.”
Jazz does hide, running first to the Underground. Her enigmatic sixth sense leads her through the subway passages to tunnels even deeper underneath the city. She finds places haunted by ghosts, alleys that should be dark but are lit, and then a secret hideout with food and supplies. Not soon after that, the owners of the hideout find her.
These are the United Kingdom, a band of plucky, honorable pickpockets led by a kindly old man named Harry Fowler. Jazz has always been good at secrecy, paranoia, and climbing, and she fits in perfectly. She quickly takes up thieving with them. Jazz stresses that she won’t stay with them forever, and Harry lets her know she’s free to leave whenever she wants, but despite the darkness and life of crime (which Jazz has no problem rationalizing) she’s happy there. She even feels safe, until the day when the men come down to the tunnels after her.
One thing that made this novel different was the way in which it changed tone. At the beginning, it was fast paced and dark–all about the chase. When Jazz went to the tunnels under the city and started seeing apparitions, it became more fantasy. Among her fellow youths, it becomes so cozy and familial that it seemed even Jazz herself had forgotten she was on the lam from the mysterious Uncles. Later, when the United Kingdom thieves switch from pickpocketing to cat-burglary, the novel changes again and becomes a heist story. When Jazz meets Terrence, the handsome man who buys her jewelry, the tone changes so quickly that I flipped to the cover to see if it was a YA romance. Many novels have unnecessary demarcations of “book two” and “book three” between sections; this one could have used them.
As soon as I thought I had a handle on where the story was going, it changed. The changes in tone kept the story unpredictable, even when actual plot events matched the standard tropes, but those who like their genre more cut-and-dried might be turned off by one section or another. People who expect the fast pace and tension of the first few chapters to last throughout the book will be put off by the tinges of romance in the third quarter. Those who warm to the romance will be dismayed when the last section returns to dark and suspenseful. However, some readers might like the buffet-style. It does defy expectations.
Eventually Jazz discovers who the Uncles were and what they are so desperately seeking. She learns Harry and Terrence’s stories and what they have to do with her family and her mother’s murder. She even discovers the nature of the strange apparitions in the tunnels and why she can see what others cannot. For the most part the plot comes to a tidy and coherent end.
The novel also had a Steampunk feel to it, especially in the underground scenes. The band of pickpockets of the United Kingdom brought to mind the characters in Oliver Twist, despite the fact that Harry, unlike Fagin, is quite kindly and paternal. Many of the apparitions also feel Victorian, especially one of a magician with a rabbit in a hat. As with many Steampunk novels, there’s also a mysterious magical/mechanical device.
This novel loves London. However, its descriptions of London will come alive more for readers who already know the city. For example, Jazz lives in a “terraced town house” which suburban creatures might not be able to picture. The description of Harrods is intimate, almost like a travelogue entry, but other places are mentioned in shorthand. Sketchy descriptions would have sufficed if London weren’t such an integral part of the story, however it was about London as much as it was about any individual character. The descriptions of the setting are adequate, but not evocative.
Many of the characters weren’t as fleshed out as they could have been, which is partly why Mind the Gap reminded me of a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Jazz is paranoid, and a natural thief, and she looks good in a thong, but she doesn’t have many motivations beyond bare survival. Her fellow pickpockets don’t have much depth beyond their monikers: Stevie is handsome and brave, Cadge is kindly, Hattie likes hats. The bad guys are indistinguishable from one another. Only one has a name, and Jazz distinguishes him from the others only by his hairstyle.
While the characters aren’t fascinating enough to hang a series on, they’re just deep enough to pull the story to the end. Mind the Gap entertains, and offers a few surprises in a world that will please anyone who’s looked into the London Underground and wondered what else lurked there.
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