A review by claire_michelle18
The Conductors by Nicole Glover

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

A really cool concept for a mystery story, set in an alternative post-abolition world where both enslaved people and their enslavers possess magic and use it in very different ways. The protagonists Hettie and Benji are former enslaved people who acted as underground railway conductors and now solve crimes in the Black community in Philadelphia. The characterisation of Hettie and Benji, and the development of their relationship, was fantastic however the set up of a lot of the background characters was a little bit lacking for me - I wanted to see them more deeply characterised to give the central mystery more depth and importance.