No-Name Roundabout - Michael Hulme

Preceded by the events of No-Name Roundabout: Part One, the second book opens on one apparently disastrous night.Tragedy, however, once averted evolves into comedy, after which the tangled skein woven in Part One, begins to be teased apart. We finally meet the travelling showman’s van that takes its perplexed dinner guests on a trip back through time. But as rapidly as its conundrum is resolved fresh hazards arise to confound our voyagers. Consider the problem of the burned man under the hill. In what way will an ancient shaman’s coat aid his escape from the labyrinth? Where will his fate intersect with the fortunes of the No-Name family and what precisely is orchestrating this drama of time, space and resolution?How does the siege of Ryazan in the 13th century, by the Mongol Armies of the Great Khan, come to play its part? What will be discovered about that awful day?Only now will the baleful forces that have haunted the companions finally be understood, resolving themselves into the very nightmare figure that spurred Alice’s original escape into that fateful slice of unused history. With this demi-human player now on the board, the chess game of fate, that will solve the crisis of a kink in the fabric of the planet’s weave, can be played out. Chthonic forces have been unleashed that threaten the very balance of the earth and how likely is it that mere human bungling can mollify them?