The Rook, au service surnaturel de sa majesté

Pros: amazing world-building, fast-paced, tightly plotted, interesting protagonist, subtle underlying humour

Cons: some situations are hard to believe given the circumstances

“Dear You,

The body you are wearing used to be mine.”

When Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in the rain, surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves, she has no idea what her name is or how to pronounce it (it rhymes with Tiffany). The two letters in her coat pocket reveal both her identity and a choice: run or stay. A second attack convinces her that running away isn't an option so she decides to impersonate Thomas, a high ranking official in a secret British government organization (the Checquy) that deals with supernatural threats. Despite copious letters left by her ‘predecessor' this is no easy task, made harder by the knowledge that one of her high ranking compatriots was behind the attacks on her and a traitor to the realm.

This is not The Bourne Identity for sf/urban fantasy fans. As a Rook, Myfanwy is in charge of the workings of the Checquy officers in Britain. She has meetings with various people and makes sure the realm is secure by covering things up and reporting them to the appropriate people. Her counterpart, Rook Gestalt, usually handles the field work side of things while she does the desk work. And she's very good at desk work. As the book progresses, the action picks up as Myfanwy is forced to attend to some of the field work, something her predecessor was ill suited for, but which the new Myfanwy is surprisingly adept at.

As a character Myfanwy is fascinating. She's learning about her former self while no longer being that person. She's more direct, more assertive and less willing to leave certain things to underlings. She's also more willing to use her own special abilities. You realize after a while that she's quite different from who she used to be, making it bizarre how few people comment on the change. It also makes for several ridiculous conversations where she's fishing for information she should already know. Sometimes this is commented on in the novel, a few times it is not.

The world-building is excellent. The author gives a lot of information via letters from Thomas, but they're written with dialogue and description, so the book never feels stilted. And while many of the letters are interspersed when specific information is needed, at times the letters are used to enhance the tension, by explaining a necessary side story while the main story builds up to an action sequence. The world of the Checquy is complex, with a school for children with special abilities, a complex hierarchy of the court and pawns, ‘normals' who act as servants and compatriots but who can't rise to levels of power, an American office, etc. Learning about the world is almost as much fun as trying to figure out who the traitor is.

The author is aware of how ludicrous some of the powers and emergency situations are and often makes subtle jokes. When talking about Bath we learn,

“According to Thomas the city had once been a veritable hotbed of manifestations, with every sorcerer, bunyip, golem, goblin, pict, pixie, demon, thylacine, gorgon, moron, cult, scum, mummy, rummy, groke, sphinx, minx, muse, flagellant, diva, reaver, weaver, reaper, scabbarder, scabmettler,... [the list continues for several lines] ogre, cat in shoes, dog in a hat, psychic and psychotic seemingly having decided that this was the hot spot to visit.”

The book is surprisingly fast paced given the partial narrative writing style. There's a fair amount of tension and enough action to keep things interesting.

If you like mysteries and intricate world-building, pick this up.

I was happily listening to the audiobook and enjoying it reasonably until I made the horrible mistake of reading the goodreads description and noticing the ugly jumble of letters that is “Myfanwy”. You might think I could just select to ignore this and continue on listening to the audiobook, never again needing to see this abominable combination of letters again but I can not lie to myself. Never again will I return to my blissful ignorant days of thinking the main character was called Miffany.

(also it was kinda boring I should mention that too)

Didn't like it as much the second time around. The main character was a bit annoying; at one point she herself says admits she acts like a twit a lot of the time, and I agreed. The story and premise are still really interesting.

I listened to the audio version this time, and have mixed thoughts on the narrator. She was good at the voices and accents, but everything she read that wasn't dialogue was done in the exact same cadence. I noticed it pretty early on and it was very distracting. It was so bad that by the time I got to the halfway point that cadence started to bleed into the way I was reading the print book I was reading at the time.

Disappointed I didn't care for this as much as I remembered; still don't plan to read the sequel. But there was enough about it I enjoyed that I'm glad I went back to it all the same.

Just a great fun read that I whizzed through. A secret semi-supernatural spy agency, an amnesiac paper-shuffler turned superhero, weird mutanated allies and foes - what's not to like? And despite being a re-read it hadn't lost it's moments of suspense and surprise.
Nice to read a female protagonist written by a man that isn't a super-sexy one-dimensional fantasy and actually appears to be quite realistic and believable (in an albiet bizarre parallel version of our world).
I had only one gripe, and it's a petty little thing that nags at my teeth again and again when reading fiction set in the UK and written from the point of view of an English person.... American spelling!! Taylor would use those superfluous Us, double consonants and Ss instead of Zs (that's “zeds”

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R36Q83O8D4CWBJ?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

If you like Charles Stross' The Laundry series you will like Daniel O'Malley's Checquy novels.

Stross's series has moved from Secret History to Alt-Hist. In Stross's series, the Laundry is a supersecret British spy department that scoops up people who stumble onto the mathematical nature of magic. The problem is that as computing power has increased exponentially, so has the ability to manifest higher powers, including Old Gods from the Cthulhuian Mythos. Stross is long on a humorous mix of spy tropes and Lovecraft.

O'Malley's creation fits nicely in this framework. Myfwanwy (rhymes with “Tiffany”) Thomas works for the Checquy, which is a supersecret British intelligence organization that scoops up people born with super-powers. Although the O'Malley seems to think that the super-powers are supernatural, in fact they appear to be completely random mutations, such as regeneration, flying, the ability to control other people's nervous systems, etc.. So, rather than British IT nerds, as in Stross, we get problematic loners with mutations being reared to fight other problematic loners with mutations.

Myfwanwy is the focal point of the story. She wakes up with total amnesia, but her prior identity has left her helpful notes to orient her to her life. As a consequence, we get a deep immersion in the weird world of the Checquy where she is a “Rook,” sort of the head of domestic operations for the Checquy, which operates on a strict Chess-themed hierarchy with a Lord and a Lady, bishops, chevaliars, rooks and pawns.

This is a funny, fun and engaging story. I listened to this as an audiobook and I found myself laughing at some of the dialogue. I was also thoroughly engaged in the story, wanting to see where it would go from chapter to chapter.

This novel is only vaguely like the recent television mini-series. While the books Mwfwanwy grows as a character; the TV version remains fairly mousy and restrained. The TV Mwfwanwy seems a bit of a hose-monster, whereas the novel's version stays away from human contact. The TV version has replaced and moved around characters for no apparent reason and made the story topically about “human trafficking.”

On the whole, the book is far better than the show.

I recomment this book thoroughly.

This year I took a concerted effort to read more books from series. A lot of what I tend to read are one-off books and I want to explore more series, especially longer ones. The Rook was a recommendation by a friend and seemed perfect for this effort, being one of 3 in a series, and something a little less popular than some long standing series that I've also been afraid to approach.

Right from the outset the book is intriguing. Waking up with amnesia surrounded by assumed assailants, and then entering the strange sci-fi James Bond-esque world the main character's previous self was a part of is compelling. I really enjoyed the drip feed of information about the world of espionage she's been dropped in and the ways the author separated out the two identities of the main character to take us through learning about things ourselves. I also thoroughly enjoyed following her piece together the strange world and try to discover an insidious plot from within. It was a thoroughly enjoyable story that was a bit like reading an action movie, and that was a lot of fun. However, I did feel like there was quite a lot going on at points, dealing with many villainous parties that I wasn't sure connected and by the end of the story really didn't feel super relevant. It felt like plot padding, and because it lacked presence in the greater story I did feel myself losing attention at times on these B-plot adventures that were gone off several times. Despite this, I'd gladly read more into this world as I found it a fun romp way more often than not.

I listened to the audiobook of this and I also must call particular attention to the voice actress who did a fantastic job at voicing some of the different European dialects, particularly some of the villains.

From the back cover description:

Myfanwy Thomas awakes in a London park surrounded by dead bodies. With her memory gone, her only hope of survival is to trust the instructions left in her pocket by her former self. She quickly learns that she is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. But there is a mole inside the organization and this person wants her dead.

As Myfanwy battles to save herself, she encounters a person with four bodies, a woman who can enter her dreams, children transformed into deadly fighters, and an unimaginably vast conspiracy. Suspenseful and hilarious, The Rook is an outrageously inventive debut for readers who like their espionage with a dollop of purple slime.

Let me just get this off my chest. The cover is awful. Not that it assaults any design sensibilities. It's just scans as a YA novel, intimating the houses at Hogwarts or the Districts of Panem. The Rook is more a pulpy, supernatural action thriller laced throughout with a dry wit. This deserves to be a BBC mini along the lines of Sherlock. As to the book, it warrants something a bit more oblique, like a Justin Cronin cover.

The book opens with our protagonist in the rain, surrounded by a ring of unconscious, latex glove wearing assailants, inhabiting a body that used to belong to a Myfawny Thomas. With that we're off and running.

Through a series of letters written to/by herself Myfawny finds out she is a Rook for her “Majesty's Supernatural Secret Service” or the Checquy. In order to secure their shores from any extraordinary threat they employ a menagerie of powered individuals; from a single consciousness spread across 4 bodies to an operative that can exude tear gas through his pores or another that can wander through your dreams. When the Wetenschappeljik Broederschap van Natuurkundigen rears its head, Myfawny must work to quell a horrifying global threat while uncovering the traitor in their midst and unraveling the mystery of who wiped her mind clean and why.

So while I take umbrage with it's YA cover I have to admit it reads like a comic (or graphic novel if you prefer) in novel format. It's Bourne meets the X-Men meets Hellboy's BPRD (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) with a bit of the Umbrella Academy thrown in - and it is breathtakingly fun in it's scope. It, as one reviewer notes, “reminds us of those feelings we would get as a child hiding under our blankets trying to read just one more chapter.” A perfect holiday book - be prepared to stay up late.