The Merlin Conspiracy

This is several worlds at once which, as if on a road map, are like our world but have followed a different route having branched off at an earlier roundabout in history. We start with Roddy's narrative in a world which seems to be ours but is more grandly, madly and magically different with its King travelling continually about the country in the royal Progress. There is a conspiracy, the new Merlin is switched and the magic is being taken over. It is left to Roddy to sort out. Nick's narration alternates with hers and is a grand and fantastic journey from the apparently usual to the fabulous, through layers and levels of world, encounters with talking elephants and a hired assassin, murders, chases and strange helicopter rides. The two narratives close in together for a wonderful climax. Nobody does it better than Wynne Jones in what is her first book for more than ten years. She seems to have saved up several books and rolled them extravagantly into this rich one.