The Literary Adventures of Amber and Eleanor the Cat: Daniel O’Malley's 'The Rook' Series

In an effort to continue to force Eleanor a little more out of her comfort zone (our girl is truly dedicated to her detective novels, particularly those with a female villain), we have been exploring new genres with storylines we’d normally avoid. So when we found Australian author Daniel O’Malley and his “whodunnit” science fiction books, we knew this would be the best way to dip our toes into the world of the weird and unimaginable.

O’Malley’s “The Rook” Series is what would happen if Ian Fleming’s James Bond decided to date, marry and then procreate with Stephen King’s horror novel, “Carrie.” A genre unique in its own right, O’Malley took our favorite parts of espionage, superpower, and secret government agencies into all five of the books in his Rook series. Beginning with his breakthrough novel, “The Rook,” O’Malley uncovers a secret British government agency, dating back centuries, housing agents from all walks of life: varying socioeconomic backgrounds, education levels, and family histories. All had one common denominator: every member of “The Rookery” possessed a power that could either save or destroy humanity. 

In O’Malley’s vision, there are not just generic supernatural forces working to save the world, but several who mean harm, in extremely specific and gruesome ways. Much like their counterparts who work for the greater good, O’Malley’s villains share similarly unique abilities, and in the eyes of all Rook agents, “you’re either with us or against us.” From a being who has four separate bodies that share one brain, to humans who can create fire and electricity with a touch of their fingers, Rook agents and villains are a force to be reckoned with, for the good and the bad.

Unlike other detective series, O’Malley’s novels share the same theme, with The Rook as the hub of the plot, giving each book a different main character with a different catastrophe to prevent. Far-fetched and complex, the novels pit an average human against a secret government entity with superhuman agents. The fiction goes beyond any novel I’ve seen since Tolkien. O’Malley’s ability to merge characters and abilities is almost seamless. 

In no way do Eleanor and myself place O’Malley’s writing style and creative genius on the same axis as Tolkien (although O’Malley did attend Ohio State University, and, as an Ohio native, any reason to celebrate the rust belt is good enough for me), but his creation of worlds, realms, and realities requires serious talent. 

Although all the novels in the series build excitement through detective work, supernatural battle scenes, and the extensive training each Rook agent must face, it is the character development and the various emotional challenges each character faces that really drive the stories into true page turners. Throughout the novels, each character’s supernatural abilities are examined and explained in detail. O’Malley reveals that while some characters are born shooting flames out of their mouths, the unique identities and abilities of others are not discovered until later in life. This causes turmoil for the character, as they must shed one life to inhabit another. O’Malley’s ability to showcase the uniqueness of each character, highlighting the skill and the cost of that skill, is his superpower.

O’Malley’s series of supernatural good guys and bad guys is definitely the perfect distraction for any real life blahs. While Eleanor and I find distraction in any literature a blessing, discovering works that keep you saying “one more page before lights-out” is definitely a bonus. Each literary adventure Eleanor and I take together is special in its own way: reading the most recent O’Malley novel “Royal Gambit” meant a little extra to us. 

We began this series with “The Rook” a few years back, when this literary gang was known as “The Literary Adventures of Amber and Eleanor-and-Allen, the Cats.” We completed it down a soldier, as we lost our Allen this last November. So as we closed the final chapter in this series, we could finally say “we finished it, Al!” Eleanor [Allen] and I highly recommend reading O’Malley’s Rook series for fun, for adventure, and for the small possibility that you, too, may be harboring some unexamined superpower.