The Shadow in the North
First edition
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| Author | Philip Pullman |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Sally Lockhart series |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
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Publication date
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1986 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 59317478 |
| Preceded by | The Ruby in the Smoke |
| Followed by | The Tiger in the Well |
The Shadow in the North (1986) is a book by the English author Philip Pullman. It was originally published as The Shadow in the Plate.
This book takes place in late 1878, six years after the events of The Ruby in the Smoke. A woman named Miss Walsh walks into the offices of S. Lockhart, Financial Consultant. Miss Walsh tells Sally Lockhart that she lost all of her money in a company called Anglo-Baltic because the company experienced many tragedies, including two ships sinking and one being impounded. Sally swears to get Miss Walsh’s money back. The narrator tells the reader about Sally and how her friend Frederick is in love with her but she does not know if she loves him back. The narrator also introduces Sally’s dog, Chaka.
Meanwhile Sally’s friend Jim Taylor helps a magician named Alistair Mackinnon escape two men who have unfavorable intentions toward him. Jim takes Mackinnon to Frederick and his uncle Webster at their photography shop/private investigations office named Garland and Lockhart because Mackinnon says that he is mixed up in a murder. Mackinnon shows Jim, Webster and Fred that he has spiritual abilities (he can see things having to do with an object by touching it) and tells them of a murder he saw by touching a man’s cigar case. Mackinnon believes that the man knows that he knows about the murder, and is terrified for his life.
Later that night, Jim and Fred go to a spiritualist séance intending to see if the woman running it, Nellie Budd, is a fraud or is actually a spiritualist. While they are there, Nellie has a vision linking both Mackinnon’s vision and Sally’s investigation. Fred goes to Sally and tells her about it; in turn, she tells him what she knows about the former owner of Anglo-Baltic and now the current owner of a company called North Star named Axel Bellmann. Sally thinks that Mr. Bellman manufactured Anglo-Baltic’s collapse to fund North Star and she believes that he is very vicious. They decide to find out more about him on their own.
Mackinnon asks Fred to stay with him during a charity event in case one of the men tries to get him. Fred asks Charles Bertram, a friend of his and a fellow worker at Garland and Lockhart, if he could come with him because Charles is from an aristocratic family and he knows some of the people at the event. At the event, Mackinnon sees a man he recognizes, and Charles finds out that it was Axel Bellmann himself. After Mackinnon sees the man, he disappears, to Fred and Charles’ annoyance.
At Sally’s office the next morning, an employee of Axel Bellman named Mr. Windlesham who tries to scare her off investigating his employer. After that meeting, Sally goes to her lawyer, named Mr. Temple, who she tells the whole story to and who tells her to be careful. Axel Bellmann makes a financial deal with a Lord Wytham: if Lord Wytham lets Mr. Bellmann marry his 17-year-old daughter named Mary, Mr. Bellman will pay him 400,000 pounds. Fred goes to see Nellie Budd and ask her if she knew anything about her vision. She did not but while he was at her house, Fred learned that she has a sister named Jessie. Sally goes to visit Axel Bellmann; she orders him to pay her the money that Miss Walsh lost but he refuses. Unfortunately for Nellie Budd, Sally drops a business card with Nellie’s name and address on it, and Axel Bellman picks it up.
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