I had a feeling that I might like Cynthia Ward's 'Blood-Thirsty Agent' series and I adored it. The worst thing about 'The Adventure of the Incognita Countess' was that it ended and at a novella length too, leaving me eagerly wanting more. Fortunately, because I'm playing catch up here, I have the other three novellas ready to go and here's the second. We're not on the 'Titanic' this time, so Ward can shift the action wherever it needs to go, which opens this second book up for more ambitious adventure and exploration.

Given that there's no overt mention to Dux Bellorum in the text, I presume that title refers to the most overt historical figure in play, which this time out is Winston Churchill, so appropriate to be the Roman War Lord of the title. It's 1915, so he isn't Prime Minister yet, that job filled at this point by Herbert Asquith, but the United Kingdom is at war with Germany, merely the First World War rather than the Second. That means no Nazis to have fun wiping out but there are a lot of rumours that the Jerries have a Wolfman Squadron, which in this series isn't going to be fetishistic iconography. It's going to be real wolfmen.

Churchill has no place in Asquith's government, so he resigns his post to return to his regiment on the Western Front. He always did enjoy the glory of warfare, even if he didn't worship what it brought, so this odd decision makes a lot of sense. Given that he's an important man, someone who managed to get Martian heat ray tech into Navy ships in a foreshadowing of his later role as the voice crying out in the wilderness between the wars, M tasks Lucy Harker with protecting him. She isn't sure that he'd appreciate a female bodyguard, given that he had set the police on protesting suffragettes in 1910, but she takes the job, as long as her lover, Clarimel Stein, who's currently working Central Europe, can join her.

And so we go. For those coming in fresh with book two, you can already see the references. M is the chief of MI6 that we know from the 'James Bond' series, or whatever name it carried in 1915, but he's also Mycroft Holmes, elder brother of Sherlock. Here, he's also the stepfather of Lucy Harker, daughter of Mina Harker and Count Dracula, hence her status as dhampir. Deepening the Bond angle, we learn here that his secretary is Miss Moneypenny, presumably the mother or maybe grandmother of the one we know from the movies. Clarimel Stein is Carmilla, a upiór that we know from the Sheridan Le Fanu novella or more explicit Hammer horrors.

Those are mostly established characters we met last time out, but there are plenty of new ones floated and whether we recognise those references or not may shape how this story unfolds for us. For instance, it only takes six pages for Ward to suggest that there's a Hollow Earth and that Professor Challenger fears the Germans have been there and found gold that could affect their ability to wage war, thus something British Intelligence is keen to confirm.

She also trawls in variations on the theme, noting a couple of Americans who've tunnelled there inside a mechanical mole, the connected cavern system that stretches between two volcanoes, Hecla and Stromboli, and even conflates the real mountain of Hörselburg with the fictional idea of Venusberg, just as 'Tannhäuser' did in sixteenth century German folk ballads. The other two references there are to Edgar Rice Burroughs's 'At the Earth's Core' and Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', just in case you didn't recognise them.

I should add here that, while I'm a huge fan of lost world stories and so knew those, albeit not a lot about 'Tannhäuser', there are clearly references that I'm missing too. At one point here, we meet Dieter Krüger, the son of legendary French criminal Fantômas, who was presumed lost on the 'Titanic'. That means that my easy identification of the villains in the first novella through assuming they were the characters I didn't recognise was completely bogus, because Dr. Krüger was a reference all along and it went right over my head. Clearly, I should cue up the serials by Louis Feuillade. I haven't actually seen them yet and they're cinematic pioneers.

This works as a ripping yarn, Lucy and Clarimel acutely challenged to keep Churchill safe right in the middle of the action, even with their respective supernatural powers. It works as a game of spot-the-reference, too; the ones I've mentioned above not being everything here, there's a nod to H. G. Wells as early as the second page that's not to 'The War of the Worlds'. However, that's not all this does, because Ward manages to use this setup to explore historical themes from a modern perspective, in keeping with the mission statement of the 'Conversation Pieces' series.

For one, this is 1915 but Lucy Harker and Clarimel Stein are lovers. While lesbianism was never illegal in the UK, Queen Victoria famously is, if perhaps erroneously, remembered as not believing that two women would ever do that together, it certainly wasn't a societal norm. Therefore, it makes sense that Lucy and Clarimel aren't going to advertise the fact that they're lovers, but Ward takes it a step further. Clarimel enjoys Lucy but she still believes that they're sinning and, in righteous moments, she frees her to "find a husband, like any other normal young woman". She honestly believes that, by loving her, she's risking Lucy's immortal soul.

Also, Churchill is rightly remembered as a British hero, but she highlights 'Black Friday' and his opposition to giving women the vote, which are also factual. What's notable is that his views on women and suffrage aren't quite as simple as that might seem, because there's a vast amount of historical context, but she handles it with an appropriate level of balance. She does the same during a superb conversation between Lucy and Catherine Duleep Singh, who's the daughter of a deposed Indian maharajah. However progressive Lucy might seem on women's issues, she's of her time and her views on colonialism reflect that. Catherine has a different perspective.

I adored the first book in this series, but I believe I enjoyed this one even more. Once again, the worst thing about it is that it ends, but even having said that, it doesn't feel too short. With the first book, I wanted more of that story. Here, I just want more stories. This one did its job. Sure, it could have been longer and I wouldn't have complained in the slightest, but it didn't need to be. So, next up, the next of the stories, 'The Adventure of the Naked Guide'. See you next month! ~~ Hal C F Astell

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