Synopsis

An enemy of Harry Potters parents has Escaped from prison, and Harry not only has to survive school, but survive in general as he unravels the true past of convict Serius Black.

History

First publication: Bloomsbury, July 1999

2000 Hugo finalist for best novel.

Review

This book is unique in that it doesn't have the Dark Lord as a directly present antagonist. It deals mostly with the issue of false accusation and rumor, and how distructive that can be not only for the subject of such accusation, but how easily words can influence the social perceptions of a person. We see some really beautiful healing and forgiveness as well as personal developement in ideal in this book: Harry learn false information, then learn that said information was false, then change his mind and attitude about that information, and reconcile his failings with the person that false information affected most. We also see a new kind of diversity introduced that we had not seen in previous books. We encounter a main character with a potentially contagious "chronic illness" that casues others to develop prejudices because of their own ignorance, which speaks a lot to invisible illness in our culture today and how it is treated.