he said. Your memories will be taken, Theyll be licked out of you, everything that makes you who you are, Gone forever. Youll flee to a park, and there, in the rain, someone new will open the eyes that used to be yours.
He spoke in a voice that cracked, and I stared at him in horror, “Theyll open your eyes, your black eyes, and see corpses all around them, Corpses wearing gloves. ”
sitelink
It is always unsettling when one receives portends of doom and gloom, but to have them related to you by a homeless person in the street somehow adds even more terror to any unsolicited foreshadowing of your future.
He doesnt know you, but he KNOWS what is going to happen to you, and given the other ominous signs you have received,.
. . you have to believe him,
Her name is Myfanwy Alice Thomas, Dont worry about the unfamiliar first name she will instruct you on how she wants it pronounced, You are going to be dropped into the middle of dire circumstances, You are not going to know what is going on, There is a simple explanation for this, Your protagonist is going to be as clueless as you are, You are going to have to discover what the hell is going on together,
It doesnt help that Myfanwy isnt really Myfanwy, ”Who knew it would be so horrendously complicated impersonating oneself” It is certainly inconvenient to have people wanting to kill you.
You didnt do anything to anyone, but certainly the host of this body you are occupying obviously pissed off someone who feels the only solution to your disagreement is termination.
You also have secret powers that are mostly unfathomable, You are a Rook in a secret organization, but what could that mean, and what is this clandestine group you work for Certainly, it is helpful that the original Myfanwy left some notes.
”So, I suppose youre wondering all about the Checquy Group, Oh, and please note that it is pronounced SheckEh, French influences, I think. Or possibly just warped by generations of employees mispronouncing it, Dont worry if the name means nothing to you, Most people never hear of it at all, but it has been in existence for centuries, It worked closely with the House of York, tended to ignore the Tudors, and endured the House of Stuart.
However, it does not really matter who is rulingfrom the earliest days, the organizations loyalty has been to Britain rather than to a particular ruler.
”
I have to laugh because I tend to ignore the Tudors as well, Some might even say I loathe those bastard usurpers, but really I shouldnt let something that happened inon Bosworth Field, the end of a dynasty that I just happen to be related to, bother me in.
That would be ridiculous.
So what exactly do the Checquy do They look into anything supernatural that needs to be contained and properly hidden from the public.
Normal people must be allowed to go about their lives, unmolested by malevolent beings or even allowed to know such entities really exist.
”And here I am, on the way to Bath, to observe the chanting house that eats people.
” As an example of controlling information with misinformation, the chanting house that has been turned into a crater is released to the public as a gas leak explosion.
So Myfanwy must learn very quickly who she is, what she does, who she can trust, and who erased her memories.
I really enjoy the discombobulation, Daniel OMalley has the reader feeling as if he has been caught wrong footed for a good portion of the novel.
The notes left to the new Myfanwy are helpful and gives her and us enough information to keep us in the game.
We are left in a constant state of thirsting for more revelations, I find myself endlessly speculating about what I do know exactly means, I am also worrying about how much highly essential information I am missing, The suspense keeps me reading feverishly to get the answers I am seeking, Starz has just released a TV series based on the books, I am looking forward to seeing how they portray the supernatural elements and also how they choose to dole out the information to the watcher.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit sitelink jeffreykeeten. com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:sitelink facebook. com/JeffreyKeeten How agreeable this was,
It was all Ghost Busters Men in Black Austin Powers,
I'm trying to think if I want to do a list/ recommendation/ thing with actual content, but really, it is just this: how diverting this is.
How amusing. How entertaining. .Kindle sale, July,. Loved it! posted at sitelinkwww, fantasyliterature. com:
As Daniel OMalleys supernatural thriller The Rook book one of THE CHECQUY FILES begins, Myfanwy Thomas comes to herself with complete amnesia.
Shes standing in a London park at night, Surrounding her is a ring of motionless bodies, They are all wearing latex gloves,
Myfanwy “rhymes with Tiffany” finds two letters in her jacket pocket from her former self:
Dear You, The body you are wearing used to be mine Im writing this letter for you to read in the future.Myfanwys former self was aware that in some way her brain was going to be magically wiped of all memories, and did her best to smooth the way for future memoryless Myfanwy by writing a number of letters to herself.
All you need to know immediately is that someone I should be able to trust has decided that I need to be removed.The second letter presents her with a choice: go into hiding for the rest of her life, using the fortune in a bank account specified in the letter, or jump back into her prior life and try to find out why she was betrayed.
I dont know exactly who, I dont know why. It may be for something I havent even done yet,
New Myfanwy fully intends to grab the money and take off, but another attempted assassination convinces her that the only feasible option is to stay and fight.
Having selected Option, she and we embark on reading a long series of letters from her former self, which explain Myfanwys past life as a highranking member of the Checquy, an organization of people with superpowers who help Great Britain and the world with various types of supernatural threats.
Its sort of like the Xmen, except with a lot more British bureaucracy, Myfanwy needs to figure out who in the Checquy betrayed her and why, while trying to hide from everyone the fact that she no longer remembers anyone or anything.
As an infodumping device, the letters are a bit transparent, but its all interesting enough that I never felt like complaining except for one or two times when these flashback letters interrupted a particularly suspenseful scene.
First get Myfanwy out of mortal danger, THEN give us another letter!
In an interesting conceit, the Checquy organization is based upon chess pieces: theres a Lord and a Lady the king and queen of the organization, two Bishops, two Rooks, etc.
Only those people who have some kind of supernatural power can be in the top ranks of the Checquy.
All others are Pawns which leads to some understandable resentments and tensions in the ranks, Also, it quickly becomes apparent that former Myfanwy, for certain reasons in her past, was an extremely sensitive and timid person and, despite her stellar organizational skills, was not much respected within the Checquy.
New Myfanwy, not burdened by those painful memories, soon starts to spread her wings and exercise her clout within the organization.
There are multiple types of superpowers on display in The Rook, but theyre not your runofthemill superpowers.
We have, for example, Gestalt, who is a single mind that inhabits four very goodlooking and frequently homicidal bodies.
Others can exude poisonous clouds of ink, sprout quills, or develop an impenetrable steel coating,
The Rook is written in a breezy, easytoread style, with a lot of wry humor in the writing and dialogue.
There are several laughoutloud moments:
It was a dress designed to draw attention, “You look like Cinderella,” said Val in awe,Myfanwy is an easy protagonist to root for as, despite the handicap of her memory loss, she gamely takes on both her coworkers in the Checquy as well as the enemies theyre battling.
“Yeah, if shed been into bondage and had Christian Dior as a godmother, ”
After the initial setup theres a lot of action in the plot except when its slowed down by the ubiquitous letters from Myfanwys former self.
The mystery of Myfanwys secret enemy kept the plot suspenseful, and there were some interesting twists that I didnt foresee.
The Rook may not be Great Literature, but it was just so much fun!
.
stars.
Content advisory: scattered Fbombs a fair amount of violence and gore, Finally! First great read of the year, Admittedly, that's because I'm hoarding sitelinkDays of Blood amp Starlight and sitelinkThe Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There like a survivalist with canned goods, or a chocoholic with a secret stash of Toblerone in the back of the freezer not that I'm speaking from experience.
And while I tempered down my five to a more reasonable four, the fact is this was a perfect read the first time through.
I'll save the detailed summary this is one time when the blurb gets it right, It starts rather hardcore action movie: woman coming to consciousness in a midst of a circle of bodies, no memory of self or events, dripping from the rain and blood.
She discovers an envelope in her pocket from the MyfanwyThatWas, Soon it evolves into a James Bondstyle government agency spy thriller crunched with identity disorientation of The Bourne Identity.
Halfway through I realize O'Malley is channeling sitelinkThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or at least Men In Black, and that the flashbacks felt a lot like XMen.
I'm finding it disturbing that I'm describing a book by referencing movies, Is that acceptable in a book review
Narrative shifts between letters from MyfanwyThatWas to the current scramble of MyfanwyThatIs to solve the mystery of who is trying to kill her.
While that had the potential to become a tiresome device, O'Malley uses it well, giving context to Newbie just before she needs to use it, cuing the reader at the same time.
Sometimes Senior relates an incident, sometimes she lays out structure and organization, or gives a dossier on other characters.
For the most part it was able to maintain pace and tension through the shifts, At times, O'Malley is tongueincheek: right as Myfanwy thinks, "I suppose I should do some more homework on how this organization actually works," the next section is from one of the letters, under the title of "How This Organization Actually Works.
" I actually found it rather delightful, highlighting the mental similarities in how they process information,
As the story develops, Myfanwy starts to take on her own personality, more abrupt and direct than the prior, who she now thinks of as "Thomas," their last name.
I thought the transition between the two was handled well, and as the story developed, I cared just as much about what happened to Thomas and wanted to know her story, even though I knew where it would end here's where my habit of peeking at the end of books comes in handy it's kind of like the book is a spoiler for it's own self because we know Thomas is 'dead,' or at least, gone.
I enjoyed Myfanwy's character breaks, and it set the stage for gentle humor as she responded almostbut not quitein character:
"An emergency has emerged, and both you and Rook Gestalt have been summoned to an interrogation," the secretary replied in an unruffled manner.
"Oh. Okay. " Myfanwy looked down and her desk, thought for a moment, and then looked up, "Are we getting interrogated, or are we doing the interrogating" she asked,
Then there is:
"It's time for your dinner with Lady Farrier, "
"Oh, crap," she sighed, then noticed Clovis's shocked expression, "I mean, oh, good, this should be delightful, "
The humor isn't out front in the beginning, which now strikes me as one of the delightful parts about the writing.
Tightly wound around an action core at the start, O'Malley sneaks in humor one subtle comment at a time, gradually becoming more absurd.
The first hint that we aren't in London any more comes about three chapters in when we meet Rook Gestalt, really one of the more innovative creations in scifi/fantasy literature that I've happened upon.
One mind, four bodies. I found myself trying to wrap my head around that one somewhat distracted by comparing it with Zaphod and his two heads and just got rather smacked with the possibilities.
By the end, the absurd veered out of control at a couple of points, but for the most part O'Malley was able to maintain the balance between chuckles and tension.
Before too long, the American version of the Court comes to call, and
the subtlety gloves come off when the American Bishop Shantay and Myfanwy take on some fungusafter lunch, of course.
"'That is experience talking,' said Shantay, 'In these situations the glass is always halfempty, '
'Always'
'Always,' confirmed the Bishop, 'Right until it fills up with some sort of spectral blood that grows into a demon entity, '
Or a threat:
'I'll kill you first,' promised Myfanwy in a cold voice.
'I'll kill you twice if I feel like it, '
Truly riveting fun, exactly what I needed after an awful start to the weekit was the ideal book experience of immersion and diversion.
Highly recommended to anyone who likes a dose of humor with their surreal actionspymystery thriller,
Four out of five, Or are they
Update from Dec,re:read: I think I nailed it fairly well the first time, except that part about humor, It's seriously funny almost all the way through, in that very British way,
Cross posted at sitelink wordpress. com
Update from September: idk 'almost all the way through, ' There is a lot of back story, .