Sanctuary by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple is the second book in the Stone Man Mysteries. It seems to take up right where the first book left off, so I’d recommend trying to check out both at the same time. Sanctuary does contain a prologue that sums up the events of the first book, but I feel readers would enjoy book two more if they read the events of book one in their entirety.

The setting is Edinburgh, Scotland, in the early 1930s. The main character is young Craig, a young boy who apparently lives at a church and is a “footman” for Silex, a stone gargoyle come to life who spends his days being detective and solving mysteries.

The pictures by Orion Zangara are drawn entirely in black and white, which can make characters appear fairly similar and can confuse a reader if you’re not careful distinguishing who’s who. As I read a lot of manga, it didn’t bother me as much as it might someone who’s never read many graphic novels.  The art is fairly nice and the layouts are quite detailed. I found the story occasionally confusing, as though dialogue was left out or I was skipping into a conversation that felt “added in” all of a sudden, which made the cohesiveness of the story a little hard to follow. Take your time to read this, or you might get lost in what’s going on!

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The ending is left open-ended, as though anticipating more novels down the road, but the mystery in Sanctuary is solved and put to rest by the completion of this book. A fun read for both boys and girls.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Lerner Publishing Group

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  4 religious exclamations; 2 mild obscenities. 

Violence/Gore:  A prologue details deaths and violence that occurred in Book 1 of this series; description of “resurrection men” who dug up and sold corpses to medical schools; a character recalls having to kill someone in the past; a character is in fear of her life; a character is said to have mysteriously dropped dead; a character suspected of dying via foul play is revealed to have been hanged 142 years earlier; characters express surprise at someone’s death; a character relates someone trying to sell off a corpse; a character is confronted by a hooded man with a pack of hounds; a character is afraid of an animate stone gargoyle, thinking it a demon; a character relates how two people murdered 16 people when they were alive; a character sees two men throttling a third; a boy is throttled by a man and rescued by the appearance of a creepy figure and its hounds; a character is attacked by hellhounds and apparently dragged through the cobbles to hell; a character is knocked out and dragged away; a character wakes bound; a character relates seeing someone get pulled through cobbles by hounds; hellhounds break through a window after someone; a character is warned that someone belongs in hell; a character reports killing her father because he killed her mother and was about to kill her and her younger sister (slightly graphic imagery of the girl killing her father and being hanged for her crime); a girl is pursued by a devil; characters are threatened by demonic creatures; a priest curses a demon back to hell. 

Sex/Nudity:  A girl almost faints and a boy catches her; a boy and girl briefly hold hands; a boy and girl briefly sit on a bed together to talk (not sexual).

Mature Subject Matter:

Murder, death, physical spouse abuse, physical child abuse, supernatural/hellhounds and demons.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

A character is said to be drinking and carousing all hours with nary a break; a character dies with a pint of shilling and a bottle of claret in either hand; some pictures of characters drinking; a boy visits a wine merchant; a character is to find two Irishmen either in the worst of pubs or talking to drunks; a boy stops at a pub; a man kills someone while in a drunken rage.