Dangerous Remedy (Battalion of the Dead Book 1) by Kat Dunn

★★★

Fantasy adventure set amidst the chaos of the French Revolution

The year is 1794. Following the executions of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, the French revolutionary government is under the control of Maximilien Robespierre and his Jacobin allies, who have established a grim dictatorship under the guise of furthering the revolutionary republican cause. A spate of arrests and executions by guillotine are filling the prisons in Paris and leaving the city awash in blood. A new religious belief, the Cult of the Supreme Being, is being supported and promulgated by Robespierre to replace Catholicism as the official religion of France. However, despite the promise of the Revolution, people are still starving, the socio-economic divides are ever present, and disillusionment and horror at what the Revolution has become are beginning to take their toll.

In the midst of the Great Terror, a small band of young people have come together to form the Bataillon des Morts, a group dedicated to helping anyone with a loved one or friend in trouble, regardless of what side of the Revolution they might be on. Camille,the leader, traumatised by the death of her revolutionary parents and determined to rescue others like them; Ada, the brilliant science student from Martinique; Guil, a French army deserter; and Al, the black sheep of an aristocratic family – all the members of the Bataillon are in some form of danger and have their own different demons to face. But when they are tasked by the royalist Duc de L’Aubespine to rescue a girl named Olympe from the Bastille, they make an extraordinary discovery that could change the course of history …

With clear homages to Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – as well as a nod to Alexandre Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask – Dangerous Remedy establishes itself from the get-go as a historical adventure tale spiced with a little sci-fi and fantasy for good measure. Throwing the reader straight into a daring rescue right at the beginning, the plot then builds steadily as the members of the Bataillon gradually realise the high stakes of the game into which they have unwittingly stumbled. The twists, turns, and dangerous uncertainties of revolutionary Paris are evoked with skill and potency, as it becomes impossible for the Bataillon to know who to trust.

It has to be said that, at times, the members of the Bataillon seem a little too contemporary in the way they speak and act; there are instances where it feels as if they are 21st century time travellers sent back to right the wrongs of the French Revolution. The characters’ excessive modernity can take the reader out of the story, making us forget where we are supposed to be and, more importantly, who they are supposed to be. Another issue that strains the credibility of the story is Camille’s poor leadership. We know she is young and obviously dealing with terrible loss, but nonetheless she comes across as decidedly unsympathetic, not good with people, and awful at decision-making. We are told that she is the leader, the founder of the Bataillon, and that the others follow her willingly, but we not shown why. There is, however, one point where Camille acknowledges to herself that she doesn’t deserve the faith they all place in her, so perhaps this is intentional and will be dealt with in the books which follow.

A solid, if flawed, start to a promising series.

Jo-Anne Blanco (as Arwen Evenstar) for Elite Group

Elite Group received a copy of the book to review
©Jo-Anne Blanco 2021