“The Rook” by Daniel O’Malley

I thought it was time, after many months, to once again write a little book review. I’ve had “The Rook” by Daniel O’Malley on my reading-list for quite some time and thought it might be a relaxing read during my trip to Mallorca this summer. Turns out that it was the perfect book for that occasion!

I’m not that well-versed in the urban-fantasy genre so it’s hard to draw comparisons to other books but this book and presumably also the second entry in the series (“Stiletto”) feels like a mix powered people coming from the Marvel universe packed into a Men in Black-like secret organization.

The book starts off with the well-worn amnesia-trope, but the author manages to pull it of splendidly without it ever becoming annoying. The person with amnesia is the main protagonist who wakes up one day without her memory in the body of a high-ranking member of the Chequey, a century-old British organization tasked with protecting the British people from supernatural forces by employing people with supernatural abilities. Not knowing pretty much anything about any of that she is pulled into all sorts of conflicts and intrigues while trying to act as if she still had all her knowledge and trying to learn who or what caused her amnesia.

The whole universe that was built for the Chequey was just amazing and I felt right at home in it. It feels full of lore and innumerable stories that are just waiting to be told. Oh, and there are also Vampires just in case 😂

The whole story, while sometimes being quite gory, is told in a more light-hearted way and was just a pleasure to read. There are, though, enough references to alcohol, drugs, and sex to move it out of the young-adult genre, but just by a bit and they never become a real distraction from the main plot-lines or the marvels of the supernatural world. In fact, it was so pleasant to read that I bought the second book on the same train on which I had finished “The Rook” 😁

Sadly, the ebook is only available through DRM-systems like Amazon Kindle or Adobe ID right now, so I had to bite into the sour apple and get both through Amazon 😢 Perhaps I will contact the publisher about it, though. I’m just spoiled by Tor Books, I guess 😂