This is the second novel in Laura Anne Gilman's The Devil's West series.
The novel picks up shortly after the events of SILVER ON THE ROAD (which I enjoyed quite a bit). It's a Weird West-type of novel, taking the aesthetic and setting of the Wild West tales and adding a dose of the supernatural on top. (A genre I very much enjoy.)

Well-written, populated by interesting and engaging characters, and set in an interesting world. I very much enjoyed THE COLD EYE.

Recommended. (But, start with SILVER ON THE ROAD if you're new to the series.)

"In the anticipated sequel to Silver on the Road, Isobel is riding circuit through the Territory as the Devil's Left Hand. But when she responds to a natural disaster, she learns the limits of her power and the growing danger of something mysterious that is threatening not just her life, but the whole Territory.

Isobel is the left hand of the old man of the Territory, the Boss—better known as the Devil. Along with her mentor, Gabriel, she is traveling circuit through Flood to represent the power of the Devil and uphold the agreement he made with the people to protect them. Here in the Territory, magic exists—sometimes wild and perilous.

But there is a growing danger in the bones of the land that is killing livestock, threatening souls, and weakening the power of magic. In the next installment of the Devil’s West series, Isobel and Gabriel are in over their heads as they find what’s happening and try to stop the people behind it before it unravels the Territory."

So, "cold" seems to be a theme this week... who am I to question it though?

After the adventures in Silver on the Road, Isobel and Gabriel continue traveling. This time Isobel is drawn to a hidden valley where the ground shakes, animal life has fled and something terrible has happened. After intervention by a medicine man, a Reaper hawk, an elk, and a serpent, Isobel gathered enough clues to figure out what had happened. Magicians, spurred on by someone tried and failed to make a great magic. Now all Isobel can do is try to settle the land and restore peace. But the Left Hand of the Devil is not kind when aroused. Someone will pay for what they did. The question is who. In all, a nice piece of alternate history set in the Wild West in the time of Thomas Jefferson. If you liked the first volume, do not miss the 2nd tale!

The Cold Eye by Laura Anne Gilman is the sequel to Silver on the Road. Isobel, along with her mentor Gabriel, rides the Territory as the Devil’s Left Hand, serving as his eyes and ears, helping those who live by the Devil’s rules and punishing those who would violate those rules. Like the first book, Gilman explores a harsh and beautiful world populated by a colorful variety of characters. Like a good sequel, the plot thickens, the characters are more fully revealed, and a larger danger is hinted at. But, ultimately, the plot stumbles a bit, keeping The Cold Eye from making the leap from good to great.

If you didn’t read Silver on the Road, let me catch you up. Imagine a world where the US did not make the Louisiana Purchase. And instead of the French, that swath of territory west of the Mississippi River is controlled by the Devil. Not the pitchfork-carrying, horned beast some might picture. Instead, this Devil, the Boss, is a cigar-chomping, whiskey-drinking, card-dealing saloon runner who will make a bargain with you, giving you everything you could want and more, and expecting a lot in return. On her sixteenth birthday, Isobel asked to become his Left Hand without fully appreciating the duty, the sacrifices, the struggles that come with such a powerful position. She rides under the watchful eye of Gabriel, who has a secret bargain of his own with Boss.

The Cold Eye picks up right where the first book leaves off. In the northern frontier of the Territory, Isobel is called to a place rumbling with natural and magical disasters. A buffalo herd has been slaughtered. The land rumbles and quakes. And the land’s magic has been scraped clean. Not only must she figure out who is to blame, but she must also fight back against a powerful foe. What if this is the just the first move against the Devil’s Territory? Will Isobel learn what it means to be the Devil’s Left Hand? Will she learn what it means for her to be the Hand? And what will we find out about Gabriel and the bargain he made with the Boss?

I love Gilman’s world. Whereas Silver on the Road looked at the Spanish Protectorate to the Territory’s southwest, this book focuses on the East-West divide between the Territory and the United States. Whereas the first book pitted religion against magic, this book is more about magic and its absence. Their Territory is the Wild West—filled with dangerous creatures, powerful magicians, and magic in many forms (dark and light). The United States is more crowded, devoid of magic, and looking to expand—even if Jefferson’s America can’t quite appreciate just how much of the Territory’s legends are true.

Not only is the Territory a magical place, but it is also a hard place. It’s dangerous, requiring caution among its inhabitants. Fools die in the Territory. And so its inhabitants are restrained, quiet. Not so with the United Sates.

In addition to Gilman’s worldbuilding, I also thoroughly enjoyed watching her characters grow. Since she took to riding circuit, Isobel has become comfortable, even competent on the road. Perhaps more importantly, she’s realizing the consequences of her bargain. She may have rushed into it, thinking only of the power and respect of her new position (like someone who dreams of being an expert but doesn’t consider the hours of hard work required to get there). But now she is coming to understand its demands, its responsibilities. We also get a better sense of Gabriel’s past east of the Mississippi River—why he ran away, who he dreamed of becoming, the friends he made, why he couldn’t stay, and the long recovery he experienced upon his return. Unfortunately, the plot was a weak spot for me. I’m fine with a monster-of-the-week (book?) setup. Isobel uncovers some bad magic, fights it, and moves on. It’s a perfect framework for a series like this. And to a large extent, that’s what this book is. But it’s the execution of that strategy that bothered me.

Isobel has trouble identifying what it is she is fighting. She has trouble understanding what caused it, what kind of evil it is, and how to overcome it. But what’s worse is that she even has trouble describing it. If she doesn’t understand what’s going on, and if she can’t describe what’s going on, I found myself not really caring about what’s going on. Isobel goes into the final fight without a strategy, hoping to wing it, doing a job because it is her job. While I can respect her sense of duty, the climax is as vague as the lead up, making it less fulfilling than it should be.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked the book. I didn’t toss it across the room. And I’ll probably check out the next book in the series. Gilman does a lot of good things. She has a tremendous eye for describing the vast open spaces of the American West, and she shows readers that world through an atypical Western protagonist. But as Gilman moves into the next stage of her story, where the Devil and his Hand will fight a new kind of threat to the Territory, I’ll hope she will turn that eye for detail on the magic, the villain, and the resolution of the story.

I loved Gilman’s take on “the Weird Wild West” since I read the first volume of this series (Silver on the Road). In this world, the Devil presides over “The Territory” (roughly the southwest of the present US), imposing order and protecting the land and its inhabitants from both chaotic magic and incursions of Americans bent on the kind of exploitation and industrialization that has in our world destroyed so much wilderness. Needless to say, he isn’t what we’d think of as evil, but he is powerful and mysterious. Young Isobel has grown up in Flood, the Devil’s headquarters, and in the first volume has embarked upon a life on the road as his Left Hand, a sort of one-woman magical police force, along with her trail mentor, Gabriel. They had various exciting adventures, some involving magicians that were once human but through their craving for magical power have become something else. Now new challenges greet them, beginning with a series of unexplained earthquakes, the appearance of supernatural animals bearing enigmatic warnings, and a host of fascinating but questionable characters. This second volume is not “more of the same,” however. Gilman takes the story up a notch by delving into the very nature of magic, something Isobel is steeped in but does not yet understand. As Isobel gradually comes to realize that she is more than an ordinary human chosen for an extraordinary mission, we ourselves as readers are brought into a world of experiences beyond our own, deftly portrayed by Gilman’s consummate skill as an author. The journey is fascinating, baffling, exhilarating, and fearsome; more than that, it left me wanting more.

Last year about this time there was a spate of Old West fantasy up for grabs, and this year we get the sequels. Cold Eye is the second in the Devil's West trilogy, which features a version of the West untouched by white imperial expansion. Instead, there's the Devil, a mysterious figure who sits like a spider in his saloon, forever dealing cards and making uncomfortable bargains. His greatest bargain is with the territory itself, made through a diverse array of tribal elders, and it gives him both the authority and the responsibility to protect the land.
But the devil--the boss--isn't omnipresent, and he needs his two good Hands, the Right and the Left, to be his lieutenants. Isobel was newly christened the Left in the previous volume, and it's her task to go about the vast territory and defend it from inside and from out. With her is her mentor Gabriel, a seasoned traveler who has traveled as much outside the territory as in it, and gives Isobel a wary dose of perspective as well as some know-how.

Isobel spends a great deal of time reminding herself--and us--that she is the Left Hand, the Cold Eye, the knife in the dark, the last word...etc. It's not that these descriptors aren't cool, but they would be a lot cooler if not worn down and in by repetition. Then too there's the old adage to show, not tell, and these phrases, while catchy, aren't exactly expository. If you have to tell us that someone ought to be ruthless, it doesn't bode well for their actual ruthlessness.
Fortunately for The Cold Eye, this isn't supposed to be about a seasoned veteran. Isobel may have had her first adventure in Silver on the Road, but she's still green. She struggles with what it means to be "the knife in the dark" both in a literal sense (what does she even need to do?) and a more metaphysical one (can she reconcile herself to such coldness? Does she even have a choice?). I like Isobel, and I trust her to make both good and interesting decisions, which speaks well to Gilman's powers of characterization. There's some great internal conflict here to drive the story.
Nor is the external motivation lacking. Early on, Isobel finds a herd of slaughtered and discarded buffalo, a desecration so severe that the land itself is uneasy. More unholiness follows, with the spirits angry and the land desperate to contain and isolate them, like they're a sickness that can spread. There's also the matter of a mysterious letter for Gabriel that nags the storyline, threatening to spill even more problems into the territory Isobel is supposed to be safeguarding. Mistrust begins to form, and many of the basic facts of their world become suspect.
This is drama and dire consequence enough for any book; the problem comes when we are reminded repeatedly about the horror, the horror, the horror. Gilman does dialogue and description quite well, and her mysteries are well-crafted: there's plenty of tension inherent to the scenes without such a heavy hand underlining the Massive Consequences. What she needs is some humor or some mundane intrusions to break the supernatural tension that builds and builds within the mysteries the characters are trying to unravel.

The magic system is no help here, either. I always appreciate when magic systems rely on feel and instinct (don't get me wrong, I love Brandon Sanderson, but there really only needs to be one of him)--provided that those feelings and instincts are comprehensible and produce intuitive results. Internal logic, in other words. Fairy tales and myths survive because there is a basic internal logic we can all agree upon. Here, there is almost consistency, but the magic is too much behind the scenes, too mysteriously tied to the devil and his unknown bargains. The reveal at the end would have been more exciting if we had had any inkling whatsoever that the--mythological creature? magical creation? ...thing?--Isobel turns into is a possibility in the beginning. Instead the reveal comes out of nowhere, a solution like a desperate grab at an ending after the author exhausted herself and her characters into a corner. It's unsatisfying even if it is a cool idea, in part because we have no warning and in part because the magic, never the most straightforward in this universe, becomes so maddeningly convenient.
Overall this book is a lesser companion to its predecessor, but given that it's a trilogy the series might right itself in the end. The world is too genuinely fascinating to let go of, and there are too many big questions (what is Isobel now? What is the devil? Can the territory survive?) yet to be answered. The Cold Eye isn't perfect, but it is enough to keep me going for the third book.