I had The Rook by Daniel O'Malley downloaded for quite awhile and I'm not sure
where or exactly when I acquired it – bit of a mystery. In a moment where I was
between the audiobooks I had been waiting for I decided to give this a try. It
was a shocking delight! I had heard nothing about this book, and had no idea
what I was in for. It isn't very often I read or listen to a book where I can't
anticipate what's going to happen next. In The Rook I was constantly surprised
at where the story took me and its cast of slightly supernatural freakish
characters who work and live within a cutthroat world of corporate operatives. Well
over a month after I finished listening to it I'm still lying awake at night
thinking about it.
"The body you are wearing used to be mine." As an
opening line, this worked very well – I was more than a bit shocked. Susan Duerden, a reader I'd heard grace one of my favourite audiobooks of all time – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, has this pleasing and captivating voice that instantly lured me
in. She perfectly matches the ironic sense of humour that lead character Myfanwy
Thomas (rhymes with Tiffany) carries throughout the book. She is the perfect
voice to express the "What the fuck?" attitude that drives Myfanwy through
the story.
Myfanwy awakes in a park in London, in the pouring rain, with
a black eye and surrounded by dead bodies who are all wearing surgical gloves...
and absolutely no memory of who she is. How could I not keep listening? She discovers
a letter in her pocket, supposedly from her former self, and follows the
instructions it lays out. Once she recovers her wits in a hotel under an alias prearranged
by her former self, she continues reading the letter from her pocket. She
discovers her previous self has left her two options. For option A she goes to
a certain bank, opens a large safe deposit box and safely (presumably) escapes
to a new life and new identity in a foreign country. Option B has her going to
the same bank, opening a different safe deposit box, and finding out who the
bloody hell did this to her.
It turns out Myfanwy is a high ranking official in a
supersecret British organization called the Chequy (pronounced Shek-ay) that
reminds me a bit of Men in Black, but less secret agent and more dull
corporate. Instead of dealing with aliens from other planets, however, they
deal supernatural freaks from right here on earth. Some of those freaks, who
seem pretty normal in the Chequy world, even work as part of the organization. Did
you know that a certain percentage of men who routinely wear hats are wearing
them to cover horns? I had no idea! Myfanwy herself has some odd quirks (hence
the latex gloves on the people who tried to kill her – and ended up dead).
Officials in the Chequy take on the title of chess pieces.
There are two Rooks, two Bishops, a King and Queen, and a whole lot of Pawns
(you can guess what happens to a lot of them). Myfanwy is a Rook (referred to
within the organization as Rook Thomas) with an incredible talent for
organizing, budgeting, and sitting in an office doing paperwork.
I'm not going to tell you more because if you're not already
hooked you never will be, and if you do read it I wouldn't want to spoil any of
the delightful surprises that await you!
The Rook is author
Daniel O'Malley's first, and hopefully not last, book. I desperately want a
sequel! He has a web page and a blog that is too infrequently updated for my
liking (I know, a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here!). As I
mentioned before, Susan Duerden is an outstanding reader who makes you feel
like she's sharing a great secret story with you – like you're inside the inner
circle of the characters. I've loved her storytelling in two books now (The
Rook and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society), and she rescued a
third – a juvenile that I think was poorly written and I haven't covered in
this blog.
I can't recommend this book enough. Although it comes in at
a whopping 17 hours, it's the kind of audiobook I'd sneak five minutes here or
there to listen to more of. Usually I listen when I'm on long drives to work or
other places. It's also the first time I listened to an MP3 version on my new
Samsung Galaxy SIII phone – not doing that again – too weird getting calls and
trying to coordinate my hands free blue tooth, etc. From now on, my fabulous
phone is not for audiobooks! Plus, they only play MP3s... what's with that???
The selection is too limited.
The Rook is not available on Library To Go but if you live in the TNRD I have ordered the audio and print versions for my library. If you're not in the TNRD - beg your own library to get it! or buy it from Audible - it's worth it!
You can listen to a sample here but it doesn't look like I can embed samples from Audible anymore - I'll keep pursuing it.
Listen Up!
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