With Count Karlstein (originally published in a different form in Great Britain in 1982), Pullman shows himself again a master storyteller-this time in a light vein. The forces of good and evil, very much in evidence, do not have the intricacy and ambiguity of his later, more ambitious work: here melodrama supplants drama with a cast of characters boasting such telling names as Herr Snivelwurst, the wicked Count Karlstein's faithful follower, and Sergeant Snitsch of the local police. But it is the characters with such unassuming Victorian names as Lucy and Charlotte who capture our affection. On All Soul's Eve, these two young nieces of the count are destined to become sacrificial lambs to save their uncle from the Mephistophelean pact he entered into with Zamiel, the Demon Huntsman, tales of whom circulate widely in their mountainous Swiss village. Lucy and Charlotte, having been spirited away by a kindhearted maidservant, meet up with the wily, charismatic traveling showman Doctor Cadaverezzi. Meanwhile, Miss Augusta Davenport, the erstwhile English teacher of our heroines and a feminist ahead of her time, arrives at Castle Karlstein to inquire about them. In pursuit of the girls, these characters and more move rapidly between castle fortresses and hidden caves, between the comfortable local tavern and Karlstein's ominous hunting lodge. Young Hildi Kelmar, the rescuing maidservant, owns most of the narration. But she shares it with Lucy and Charlotte, the increasingly involved Miss Davenport, and a cameo appearance by the lovable but seemingly buffoonish Max Grindoff, sidekick to the doctor. In a clever ploy, consistent with the overt showiness of the story, altered typography announces a change in narrator. Histrionic writing complements the exaggerated plot line, which ends satisfyingly with villainy punished and virtue rewarded; two deliciously anticipated marriages climax this over-the-top romantic thriller.
Using multiple narrators and expertly concocted cliffhangers, Pullman crafts a thrilling page-turner less violent than his Sally Lockhart adventures but no less breathlessly paced. Brought to these shores 16 years after it was first published in Britain, this gothic farce features young orphans, evil schemers, a gloomy Swiss castle, a long-lost heir, stalwart lads, capable women, a con man on the lam, hilariously bumbling police officers, and Zamiel: the Prince of the Mountains, the Demon Huntsman, 'swathed in impenetrable darkness, with eyes of raging fire.' Having agreed to supply the demon with human prey in exchange for riches, the amoral upstart Count Karlstein and his slimy secretary Snivelwurst plan to lock bereaved young Lucy and Charlotte, believed to be the last Karlsteins in the direct line, in a hunting lodge on All Souls' Eve. Fortunately, 14-year-old servant Hildi and chunky but superbly competent English tutor Augusta Davenport get wind of the plot and engineer a clever reversal, but not before a sequence of mishaps, desperate searches, captures, and escapes, complicated by a tangle of subplots and capped by a gloriously frightening glimpse of Zamiel himself, at whose hands Count Karlstein meets a well-deserved doom. In the ensuing hubbub, doughty Miss Davenport is reunited with her lost love Antonio Rolipolio, an escape artist whose feckless assistant Max turns out to be none other than Castle Karlstein's real heir, kidnapped as a baby and thought lost. It's whirlwind plotting, manipulated into a pulsing tale of darkened hearts, treachery, and at long last, redemption.
