The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

Title: The Rook 
Author: Daniel O'Malley 
Type: Novel 
Genre: Fantasy 
Series: First in Tthe Chequy Files" 
Pages: 486 
Copyright: 2012  
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company 
Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary: from GoodReads

"The body you are wearing used to be mine." So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, THE ROOK is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer. 

Feelings:
I really enjoyed reading this book. I thought that it was believable even though we were dealing with a subject that is easy to go astray with. At first I didn't think I was going to like the use of letters from the original Myfanwy Thomas to the one that comes about after she wakes up with her memories gone. The letters worked as a really good tool in the beginning and I thought that they would end somewhere in the middle of the book but they continued through. I found that I liked the letters because they filled in the back story of who Myfanwy was before zap memories gone.

Myfanwy is part of the British branch of the Supernatural Secret Service. As she tries to impersonate herself, which she knows only from the letters that her former self wrote before she had her memory wiped clean, she ends up asserting herself in a way completely out of character.

As she tries to make her way through live as a Rook she often has hilarious interactions with those she should know but can't remember.

"'Well, I...had an appointment.' They regarded her with expectant eyes, and she was suddenly filled with a desire to shake up those proprietary stares. 'A gynecologist appointment.' She smiled triumphantly at the twins. 'To have my vagina checked,' she added. They nodded in unison and, to her private satisfaction, seemed somewhat disconcerted. ...  'And...it's still...there. And okay.'" (p. 55)

The book is full of funny little things that Myfanwy does to try and both shake things up and hide her secret. She must learn the workings of the Checquey and discover who had her predecessor's memories wiped.

I would recommend this book to those that like fantasy and spies.