The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams
This volume once again finds Williams planted firmly in the Christian church, peering at the occult without indulging in it. It is a tale about a deck of cards, or rather, THE deck of cards, and a family of gypsies that have been seeking them for generations.
The story itself is quite compressed, and most of it takes place over a single Christmas holiday. It has a small cast of characters, most of whom received only minor development. Overall it was far from the best Williams I’ve read, but once again he developed a plot quite unlike anything I’ve read before, and one that was interesting to boot. The book’s weakness, I fear, was the same as a comment made about another book which I’ve mentioned too many times this post to mention again: “at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture.” But this was, as I understand, one of Williams earlier works, and it is obvious his writing improved as he went along.