Beyond the Mask.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In Beyond the Mask, the concluding volume in a trilogy, Ward deftly ties up the main plot lines while leaving the slim possibility of further adventures. Action-filled from the opening event, which sees central character Coriko warning a sleeping village that it is about to be raided, to its closing section in which Coriko foils a traitor’s kidnapping attempt, the novel moves at a very fast pace. Continuing the story from its conclusion in Beneath the Mask, Coriko and his small band are finally successful in their almost year-long search to find Pippa’s natal community, the one from which Spear marauders had stolen her nine years earlier. However, the group’s happiness is short-lived as Coriko’s post-warning actions of killing some of the raiders, members of the Outside army led by King Rokhan, has led to Rokhan’s troops threatening Gotten, a walled community to which the villagers and Coriko’s band have had to flee for safety. Ironically, to save Gotten, Coriko must voluntarily return to Grassland and seek the military assistance of Marumuk, the leader of the Spears. Fortuitously for Coriko, Grassland is experiencing some internal dissension because of Marumuk’s “democratic” reforms, and Coriko is able to persuade Marumuk that this military intervention could rid Grassland of its greatest enemy while quelling dissent from those who perceive Marumuk as having become “soft.” Although Beyond the Mask can work as a stand-alone read, those unfamiliar with the previous two novels will appreciate the catch-up section, which, unfortunately, doesn’t appear until page 67. Recommended.