Throwback Thursday: The Rook Is a Delightfully Weird Twist on Urban Fantasy

The Rook opens upon a young woman regaining consciousness, with no memory of her identity. She’s surrounded by dead people wearing latex gloves, and there’s a note in her pocket informing her, “The body you are wearing used to be mine.” She slowly pieces together the truth: she used to be someone named Myfanwy Thomas, and she held the rank of Rook in a secret British agency known as the Checquy, a group of agents with strange gifts, dedicated to protecting Britain from supernatural threats. Someone wiped her memory and attempted to kill her, and after some deliberation, Myfanwy decides to pretend she is still who she once was and get to the truth of the matter.
Checkmate on the premise
That’s an incredible setup, and the world that O’Malley reveals is wonderfully complex and filled with memorable characters. The Checquy rank with best shadowy organizations in genre, with each member assigned a chess-related title indicating their rank, and each possessing a specific power. Myfanwy discovers she can control organic beings by touching them—thus the latex gloves on her assassins; her fellow Rook, Gestalt, is actually four beings in one (or is that one being in four?). But what really makes the book stand out is a simple trick O’Malley uses to incredible effect: Myfanwy has no memory, but left herself copious notes, letters, and research materials, putting the protagonist in a parallel position with the reader. We’re both in the dark, and learning as we go—so when something shocks her, it shocks us too.
The reader avatar
O’Malley’s not the first author to use amnesia to justify exposition, but he’s particularly successful at it because he uses the technique to make the simple act of reading feel like taking an active role in the story. Every piece of information that Myfanwy learns, we learns at the same moment. As we read her thoughts and get to know her as a person, the world knits itself together in real time, and we slowly come to realize that Myfanwy as we know her may be an improved version of herself, which opens up a whole can of wriggling worms.

The self, perfected
The original Myfanwy—the girl who ceased to exist when she was memory-wiped—slowly clarifies for both the new Myfanwy and the reader through her notes and letters. Recruited into the Checquy at the age of nine, her experiences were frightening and intimidating, and she suffered as a result. Myfanwy 2.0 is much more powerful and decisive, leading to the obvious conclusion that having been freed of all her baggage—her PTSD and other dark experiences—has made her a better person in some ways. But the questions linger: how much of who we are is our bad experiences? If we’re cleansed of our fears and humiliations, what remains? And how unprotected and raw are we to new horrors, with no memories of horrors past?
Build it up, tear it down
O’Malley also knows exactly what to do with the intricate fantasy universe he’s built: tear it down. Myfanwy acts as an unwitting agent of chaos, feigning experience she doesn’t have and searching for answers she doesn’t always understand. By the end, the Checquy is in chaos and Myfanwy herself is standing at a crossroads of power, responsibility, and personal agency. That a book can end on those powerful notes is wonderful…until four years go by without a sequel to pick up those threads.
All that, and it’s funny
The Rook‘s secret weapon is the tone; this is no grim, dystopian urban fantasy. O’Malley has infused the story with dry, understated humor that is only heightened by the mental application of clipped British accents to the characters’ thoughts and dialog. To read it is to understand why it’s hilarious to greet any frustrating scenario in your life with the phrase, “This duck tells me nothing!”
Now that we have Stiletto to look forward to, it’s time for everyone who loved The Rook the first time to read it again, and for anyone who missed it to find out what all the fuss is about.