The Serpent is the first book in the Games House trilogy by award-winning British author, Claire North. In early seventeenth century cosmopolitan Venice, Thene is given in marriage at fifteen, to a gambler who has soon gamed away her dowry and more. He takes her to the Games House where all manner of games and players are to be found. He continues to lose. She watches and eventually plays, plays well, and is invited into the Higher League.

The game in which she participates there is like other games, but also not. A new Tribune is to be elected and four players each play their piece, one of the candidates for the Supreme Tribunal of Venice. To win the game, the player’s piece must be crowned King (elected Tribune). Each player is issued a mask, a letter and several other “pieces” represented by Tarot Cards, for use to achieve their goal.

Thene’s candidate, Angelo Seluda, is not entirely sure she will be up to the task, but she assures him she plans to win: “This isn’t a game.” “Isn’t it? There are rules, boundaries, constraints on your action. Clear goals, tools to achieve them, a set table of rivals who must obey the same rules that you do if they want to reach the same end. The only difference between these events now unfolding and any other game is the scale of the board.”

Thene is an excellent chess player and, just like chess, there are knights and bishops and castles and kings; in this case, they are real. Strategy, timing, tactics, all are essential for winning. North gives the reader a very cleverly plotted tale that unfortunately loses half a star of the potential 4.5-star rating for indulging in the annoying editorial affectation of omitting quote marks for speech. Two further books in this trilogy, The Thief and The Master, are bound to be interesting reads.

The Thief is the second book in the Games House trilogy by award-winning British author, Claire North. In pre-WW2 Bangkok, at the Gameshouse, a very drunk Remy Burke has made an unwise wager. He has agreed to a game of Hide-and-Seek with Abhik Lee. The Board is the whole of Thailand and the stakes are high: if Remy wins, he gains twenty years of Abhik’s life; if he loses, he forfeits his own memory, all of it.

Abhik Lee is a local with many resources, even without considering the cards the umpires give him. Despite his good command of the language, Remy Burke is a six-foot white Anglo-Frenchman with virtually no resources in the country; the rules don’t allow him to access any off the board. The game is hardly even, but Remy, extremely hungover, has no time to wonder why the Gameshouse has allowed (perhaps even encouraged?) this before he sets out to hide.

Against the odds, Remy is not immediately caught. He does have some assistance: other players can help in minor ways, but of course there will be a future debt to pay; and some of the locals he encounters in his travels around the country are simply good people. And Remy is quick and sharp and determined, and sometimes very lucky. North gives the reader a very clever plot that also hints at what the final book of the trilogy, The Master, will involve. A brilliant read.

The Master is the third book in the Games House trilogy by award-winning British author, Claire North. After centuries of preparation, Silver judges it’s time to play the Great Game. At the Gameshouse’s current location in New York City, Silver challenges the Gamesmaster. The decide on chess. It’s the Great Game, so the board encompasses the whole globe, and the stakes are their lives, for the players are the opposing Kings. And while Silver has amassed many resources, the Gamesmaster has the wealth of the Gameshouse at her disposal.

Silver quickly relocates to a tiny island in the Caribbean, but stays mobile: he’s soon on an Interpol watchlist. This is chess, so strategy is all important, and he has to be careful not to use his key pieces prematurely. Those pieces are many and wide-ranging, from American Senators to German police to net hackers to FBI agents, cyber-security experts.

The game is serious and there are many casualties: “I activate the Union of South American Nations; she plays two of the big four oil companies; I launch environmental terrorists and an insurance broker in retaliation. She turns the head of the Greek police against the insurance company; I turn the interior minister against the police. She unleashes a nationalist opposition movement against my minister; I play an orthodox patriarch and evangelical Christian TV station back at her” etc etc etc.

The action, and there is plenty of it, sends Silver all over the world as he and the Gamesmaster battle to win. Some years into the Game, Silver reveals to one of his pieces his ultimate aim should he win, it provokes an unanticipated reaction from an unexpected quarter. This eventually leads to a very bloodthirsty climax and a rather predictable ending. A disappointing conclusion.