The Rook (The Checquy Files, #1) by Daniel O'Malley

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So, can I do it? Write x number of reviews in one day (I think this is review #4)? No, I’ve been lazy, not reading a ton of books today. More gibberish: I’ve read 8 works so far this year, only three of them being lesbian fiction, and there’s no real rhyme nor reason for the weird wandering genre game I’ve been doing reading wise (short story shifter fantasy; British police mystery; urban fantasy mystery; fake relationship romance; time travel science fiction mystery; horror zombies; British urban fantasy mystery; romance; - oh, I guess there was more connection between the genres).

Right, so this is the British Urban Fantasy Mystery. As the book description notes right at the beginning – this book begins immediately with someone blinking and looking around at dead bodies wearing latex gloves. In the rain. In the park. With no idea who she might be. Except – she found a letter in her pocket telling her who she had been. Who had occupied her body before she appeared. For, you see, Myfanwy (a Welsh name, pronounced, by Myfanwy, like Tiffany, Miffany; though I kept pronouncing it as My-fanny) Thomas has had her memories wiped, and the person now in her body? Well, that’s still Myfanwy, with access to her ‘powers’, and some ‘muscle memory’, but none of the negatives that come from having grown up like Myfanwy (who had a personality that was shy and fragile due to her upbringing). The new woman calls herself Myfanwy to differentiate herself from the prior occupier of her body, who she calls Thomas.

Right, so, Myfanwy was given two choices (after securing herself a place to stay and hide while reading the choices): go to the bank, open box A to go make her own life somewhere outside England rolling in fabulous wads of cash; or open box B and continue MyFanwy Thomas’ life – there’s a bit of ‘I’ve power, wealth, and responsibility’, but no real mention of what said life consists of. Naturally, and you know she’d pick this for the book to exist – she chose box . . . . A. Well, I’d probably have chosen A. And she was going to pick A – all the way until the people in the bank, all wearing latex gloves, tried to kill her. Which pissed her off, causing her to open box . . . which was it again, oh right, B. And the positives and negatives that come along with having wealth, power, and responsibility, while not knowing just who you are, or what you are supposed to be doing.

Myfanwy Thomas is: a Rook. That’s right, there’s this King, see, King Louis the 13th, and he has humans dressed up as chess pieces, and he moves them around. When a piece ‘gets captured’ – he cuts off their head. Heh, no. The group Rook Thomas is a member of, the Chequy, just use the chess thing for organizational reasons (though their King and Queen are Lord & Lady – since it’s difficult to have a ‘King’ or ‘Queen’ when the country is ruled by a different King/Queen (which is vaguely humorous to me when I recall just reading a book by Peter Lovesey about a real life person in Bath England who was the ‘King’ of Bath because he was the top . . . um . . I forget the word now, but he was the ‘top’ in Bath, top minister of ceremonies or something – apparently around the same time the fake Chequy was organizing itself and dropping King and Queen from their top roles, the real life world 1700s was using those terms for people who were not King and Queen – as in not head of the British government (actually, the Chequy sprang up a century earlier in the 1600s).

Right, that was a weird diversion by me.

Thomas works as a Rook for the Chequy – which is a member of the ‘court’. There are two heads: Lord & Lady. Then below that are the Bishops who do . . . um . . . Bishop stuff (not connected to religion, but to chess pieces); below them are two Knights (using a different title that I can’t recall now, something like Chevalier) who deal with international affairs; and two Rooks – who deal with domestic affairs. Below them are the Pawns. Pawns are ‘powered people’ but not members of the court. Everyone already mentioned are ‘powered’ people. Also, in addition, are the ‘non-powered’ people, and they are called ‘Retainers’.

I’m dumping information on people, eh? Lots and lots of information. Well, that’s what the original Rook Thomas did – she was informed, notes the book that she would have her memory wiped and someone else would end up blinking and waking up in her body – but without any memory. So Rook Thomas wrote a bunch of letters to herself – the book is filled with these letters dumping information on newborn-Myfanwy and the reader. The beginning information dumps were quite intriguing and fun to read. Somewhere along the line, though, it became tedious to read a scene, have the scene break in the middle, have a letter, and then go back to the scene. I started skimming those letter sections. *shrugs* Eh, I’d probably dislike the book if I had chosen to wade through everything there.

Right, so – Rook Thomas, sorry, the new one not the old, has to operate in this world where she’s highly placed, with great power and responsibility, while hiding she has amnesia and hasn’t a real clue what she’s supposed to be doing. While knowing someone is trying to kill her. As the book unfolds, she ‘deals with’ various administrative things, handle crisis, ‘sit-in’ on interrogations, and learn about herself and her powers.

Crap. I forgot that. That was supposed to be up there before I started giving titles and stuff. Right, so, Chequy is a secret organization that handles fantasy type creatures, like demons, and witches, and the like – though not ‘handle’ in the same way the Spanish Inquisition would handle a witch (toss suspected witch into river – if she floats, is witch! Or something like that). No, the Chequy is more likely to pull a witch into their organization than kill, unless they can’t – then kill away.

This was a fun, humorous, mysterious, enjoyable book. As long as I didn’t let myself get bogged down in all those letters.

I liked the personality on display for Myfanwy except for one specific thing that seemed somewhat out of character – she kept drooling over every halfway decent looking man around her (okay, not really, more that she just kept making note of how gorgeous certain men around her were, and – once or twice, feeling vaguely sad she hadn’t/hasn’t slept with them).

Heheheh – I was now going to put down some of the funny bits I found in the book. Only to notice all of them are just so bloody. I mean, literally. The first I’d highlighted noted an appointment book so thick it could bludgeon a cow; a second highlight noted that Myfanwy had raised her voice and cut through the chattering like a scythe through a poodle; third one mentions ‘Myfanwy looked as if she had bathed in the blood of ten fashion designers.’ Apparently I find humor in violence. I feel sad about myself.

The ones not directly violent are connected – like the one where Myfanwy was going to go to an interview – an interrogation, and it was pointed out that her flower covered cardigan might detract from her ‘scary face’. And another had someone ask if Myfanwy wanted to go clubbing, and Myfanwy inquired as to what was being clubbed –

”A few of us are going clubbing and I thought that if you weren’t busy, you might want to come.”

“Clubbing? Clubbing what?” asked Myfanwy.

“What?”

“Do you mean self-defense?”

“What are you talking about?” asked the girl whose world did not consist primarily of supernatural security.

Part of the fun of this book was watching someone bouncing around with amnesia trying to not trip themselves up, while acting completely (by accident) unlike the way the former occupant of her body acted (and therefore causing people to sit up and stare at her). So, while there is a sequel, I’m slightly less inclined to track it down and read it. At least not right away. That little aspect would be somewhat . . . well, not so much gone as been covered. By this book here.

Right, what’d I put down as my rating?

Rating: 4.55

January 9 2018 (gah, how many of these reviews have I inserted 2017 instead of 2018? Mmphs – I didn’t this time, but I started to do so).



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