This is the sixth novel in Jacka's highly entertaining Alex Verus series, about practitioners
of genuine magic in present-day London. Reviews of the earlier five are on this
blog and, if you are new to this series, it is best to start at the beginning
with Fated because although each
book has one major, self-contained plot, there are sub-plots which develop
through the series, which the reader is assumed to know about.
There are some spoilers in the following review.
The key plot element this time is that Verus, feeling
threatened by what Richard Drakh, his former master and Dark Mage of immense
power, might do to him on his return from a ten-year absence, decides in the
interest of survival to join the Keepers, the police force of the Council of Light
Mages. Only to find himself in the centre of a crisis between Light and Dark
Mages concerning the White Rose, a magical organisation which provides exactly
what its customers require to achieve sexual gratification. The moral ambiguity
and lack of any clear right and wrong sides in the crisis means that Verus is
faced with an uncomfortable decision about who to support between two factions,
both of which he despises. In the meantime somebody wants him dead – as usual!
Veiled is just as
easy and enjoyable to read as the earlier volumes, but is less satisfying.
Apart from Verus joining the Keepers and learning the ins and outs of Light
Council office politics there is nothing very new in this one, no further revelations
concerning Verus and his friends; just more of the same. Drakh continues to be
a distant threat so his relationship with Verus is taken no further, and a
sub-plot concerning the advanced training of his apprentice Luna barely has a
chance to get going before the end of the book.
I do hope that Jacka isn't running out of steam or, if he
is, that he brings the series to a satisfactory conclusion soon. As the old
show-biz saying goes: "Always leave the audience wanting more!"
3 comments:
I enjoyed the book, Tony, but it does feel like a middle book, without much progress towards the end of the story.
I was fine with that, but I worry that he might not want to arrive anywhere. It's a series, after all, and he might not want it to end.
With the Richard Drakh storyline, though, everything else is going to seem relatively inconsequential. Until that is concluded, everything is going to seem like a middle book. And if it does get concluded, it's going to be hard to continue the series.
That's the problem with super-villains. Jacka might have been better off keeping Richard Drakh in the past. Of course, I'm going to get tired of any series after awhile, anyway.
I agree. I'd prefer to see a great series brought to a satisfying conclusion rather than just slowly dying.
Thank yyou for writing this
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