The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
For some reason I never really connected with The Rook. I particularly wasn’t convinced by the secret organization. The amnesiac protagonist has to go to work there, having forgotten all about it.
This lets the author insert biographies of the new characters she meets as she looks them up in her notes. But she had a whole weekend to study these notes, so it makes her look dumb. When she’s supposed to be a bureaucratic genius.
It would have been bad to give the reader this information when the character would have learned it. One big block of exposition without any action. But to make your character dumber, so that she has to learn it twice, is not the solution. He solved a structural problem in a way that requires the protagonist to act uncharacteristically. I consider that a serious flaw that his editor should have caught.
Further, this bureaucratic genius never seems to manifest. I saw martial prowess and advanced spycraft. Is exposing a shadowy conspiracy / coup a heroic act of org chart restructuring? Maybe there’s a blurred line between spycraft and bureaucracy.
Either way, she’s not saving the day with paperwork.
What I liked was the bad guys. They’re creepy. Also, they’re just as confused about what’s going on as the good guys are, which is a nice touch.
The American supernatural spy felt tacked on. I’m not sure what purpose she served except to enable witty repartee. With a character from whom I do not expect witty repartee. A character who’s supposed to be shy and scared.
I’m afraid, in my opinion, this needs a rewrite, after a good solid re-working of the outline.