The Rook (The Checquy Files, #1)

by Daniel O'Malley

[wyvernfriend]

Almost a 4 star read. Just not quite, maybe 3.75 stars for me. Shows a lot of potential but I found it too easy to put it down.

In a Jason Bourne meets Torchwood meets urban fantasy-esque scenario, a woman wakes up in a London Park, dripping wet, badly bruised but alive, unlike the corpses surrounding her, in her coat pocket is a letter from herself, Myfanwy Thomas who is a senior member (Rook) in a supernatural agency that keeps the Supernatural from invading the lives of too many of it's citizens. She discovers that she knew she was going to lose her memory so she prepared for this, with her best skills, organisation. She is given a choice, run or play with the cards she's dealt and she has to learn, fast, what's going on.

Best excuse for some of the infodumps you get in the form of lletters., also best excuse for having to explain the organisation to the audience, because she doesn't know anything more than she uncovers.

What kinda lost me was the way the bad guys didn't seem to have a motive beyond "because they want to". No mention of what happened to a shadowy organisation during the conflicts of the 20th century Huge potential lost in where the shadowy organisations would possibly have had to work together against Nazis); if you poke the plot hard enough it starts to crumble a bit. There's a lot of history of now, but before that has a lot of handwaving and you can't do that when you root a story in the known world.

It's interesting, shows potential and the main character is growing an interesting backbone.