The Rook

[sawyl]

On the strength of its intriguing premise — a heroine suffering from amnesia guided by notes from her former self — I picked up Daniel O'Malley's The Rook on spec. And I was disappointed: it's a fun, elegant supernatural spy thriller populated by an excellent cast of characters and with a suitably rewarding final payoff. Despite sharing some common ground with Charlie Stross' Laundry novels, O'Malley is broadly comic where Stross is sardonic and glamorous in his approach to civil service life where Stross is determinedly realistic.

And so to the plot, which opens with Myfanwy Thomas standing alone in the rain, surrounded by a ring of dead bodies, with no memorise of her former life. In her pocket, she finds a letter from her former self telling her that she has been betrayed by one of her colleagues in the Court of the Checquy, Britain's supernatural spy agency. After reluctantly deciding to take up her predecessor's fight, Myfanwy crams down a series of briefing notes left for her with a view to allowing her to impersonate herself in her job as Rook — one of the Checque's two heads of domestic operations. O'Malley allows the two Myfanwys' stories to unfold in parallel, intercutting post-amnesia Myfanwy's attempts to track down the traitor with a series of letters from pre-amnesia Myfanwy which build the world, introduce the key characters, and show off the differences between the pre- and post- memory loss heroines.

The world of the Checquy is well imagined and populated with a delightfully weird cast of supernatural characters. Rook Gestalt, Myfanwy's immediate colleague, is particularly fun — a single consciousness spread over four, blond, aryan bodies, it more than a hint of The Midwich Cuckoos about it. Bishop Conrad Granchester, on the other hand, is a mix of James Bond and Austin Powers. As Myfanwy's immediate predecessor, he was responsible for the refurbishment of the Rookery, complete with a secure residence that's pure 1970s shag-pad — all mirrored ceiling and bearskin rugs complete, to post-Myfanwy's horror, with very disturbing worn patches.

But where the The Rook really stands out is its strong female cast. Myfanwy is well realised, first as a nervous and extremely industrious paper miner and then later as a smart and funny and outgoing heroine who can kick arse when she needs to but whose principal means of attack are intellectual and verbal. Ingrid, Myfanwy's PA, is generous and unflapable and proves to be a good friend as Myfanwy struggles to cover up her memory loss and her inability to be quite as meek and timid as her pre-amnesia self. Shantay Petoskey, a visiting American bishop, quickly becomes a determined supporter and a good friend — so good that she insists on tagging along on a raid — while the unexpected emergence of Myfanwy's sister Bronwyn whom she hasn't seen since she was taken away from her parents 22 years ago, offers something like the prospect of a normal family to a person who has been alone and almost pathologically withdrawn all her (former) life.

Highly recommended.