Review by Colin Credle

Illustrator and author Jo Rioux continues with the adventures of amateur monster tamer Suri in the land of Galatea with The Mole King’s Lair. The Golden Twine, ably introduced the land, the characters and the promise of more things to come in a fairly short one hundred pages or so. Mole King’s Lair is more ambitious, more than twice as long and introducing many new characters. Thankfully, reading book one is not essential to capture the gist of Suri’s adventures and friends.

Here we start with young Kolya failing in his efforts to provide his group of thieves with ample loot. Kolya’s repeated mishaps result in his temporary banishment, but he’ll be welcomed back if he can plan a heist to bring something to the table. Meanwhile, further down the road, Suri proceeds with her stubborn optimism in trying to find work to make enough to buy food for her hungry troupe of travellers: Suri focuses on solutions, ever resourceful and persistent at trying new things, noting down new knowledge obtained and enthusiastically meeting new people. Byron the monstrously friendly mutt seems just happy to be along for the ride and Caglio the transparently narcissistic imp’s sarcastic whining continues to entertain.

On the heels of Suri’s group is a trio of shapeshifters trying to reclaim some magical golden twine Suri’s not aware she has in her travel bag. Rioux does a great job at assigning each character enough substance and intentions without losing any momentum through simple and expressive illustrations. The action scenes leave a lot to be desired, but the twists, turns and repeated undermining of our first impressions keep things interesting.

The struggling thief Kolya bumps into Suri, Caglio and Byron while attempting to steal treasure from the Mole King’s Lair. When it’s revealed that Kolya only escaped with a nondescript wooden stool, they all decide to return for the gold Kolya witnessed as he fled. There is gold in them hills, and Suri, Byron and Caglio are all out of food. The Mole King’s lair brings all the loose ends together, including the doltish Prince, his hunting misfits and the unemployed village miners. It does not end up where we think it will and therein lies the charm of Rioux’s Cats Cradle. Suri’s optimism, benevolent trust and persistence continually entertain and surprise.

There is no cliffhanger in a self- contained adventure, but it ends with obvious intentions to continue, which it does in Suri’s Dragon. In subsequent books, we can look forward to discovering Suri’s origin story and her quest to reach the Monster’s Cradle. So far so good. After sorting out the lair, Suri ends up in pretty good shape to continue and even met some new friends along the way. Further ahead we should be wary, there be dragons.