The Rook, au service surnaturel de sa majesté

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.