The Rook

A Novel

By: Daniel O'Malley

Narrated by: Susan Duerden

Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Myfanwy Thomas awakes in a London park surrounded by dead bodies. With her memory gone, her only hope of survival is to trust the instructions left in her pocket by her former self. She quickly learns that she is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. But there is a mole inside the organization - and this person wants her dead.

As Myfanwy battles to save herself, she encounters a person with four bodies, a woman who can enter her dreams, children transformed into deadly fighters, and an unimaginably vast conspiracy.

Suspenseful and hilarious, The Rookis an outrageously inventive debut for listeners who like their espionage with a dollop of purple slime.

©2012 Daniel O'Malley (P)2012 Hachette

amazing book

The entire plot of the book and exectuion of it was amazing. It is a must read for anyont who likes mystery.

Brilliant, entertaining, intelligent fun!

Fantastic writing and fabulous narration. I've listened to this book twice and giggled out loud both times. X-Men move over, there's competition in the house!

Starts slow but worth the wait

Although the story starts slow and takes too long to get interesting, I was glad I stuck with it and gave the leading character a chance. My enjoyment progressed upward as the story went along.

Great story. Narration takes getting used to

I really enjoyed this story. It is a fun and well written supernatural mystery. However, I almost stopped listening at the very beginning because the cadence of the narrator's voice was a bit off putting. Her character voices are fantastic and easily differentiated but the narration is very "sing-song ". If you stick with it you will find it worthwhile

Needs a better narrator

I liked the story but listening to the narrator was like fingernails on a chalk board.

Respect the Ladies...

Any additional comments?

Okay, all the characters in this story are pretty hardcore, but (without giving anything away) most of the ladies in this story are truly bad-ass. What is it about smart, powerful women with authority that does it for me?

Imaginative, creative, fantastical, unpredictable and gripping. Those are qualities in a story that keep me interested and The Rook had them all. I highly recommend this book.The narrator overall did a good job and by no means would I dissuade you from this story by the few and fairly petty criticisms I have with the narration. You will notice early in the story she has a peculiar way of ending a sentence. Not sure how to describe it, but you will hear it. If you can get used to that (like I did), then you will be fine. The next issue I have is that she blasts through the witty jokes without any inflection to let you know a joke has just come and gone. It's difficult to recognize sarcasm without inflection. The humor is classically British, dry and clever which I love, but she reads it in a manner that makes it difficult to recognize when the character is being sarcastic or humorous. The only other thing was that her American accent for a character made me wince a little (I know, petty).

There are enough unforeseen and imaginative twists in the story that keep your attention and make you happy you can't guess the next move. Just when you think you know what's going to happen next- "Well, she is clearly going to need to..." POW! Twist... Woah... Cool... Loved it.

Very well done!

The mystery and acerbic humor in this book are great. I can’t wait to listen to the sequel!

The narrator was quite good and brought the characters to life.

A little hard to follow all the characters

What about Susan Duerden’s performance did you like?

Pleasant voice to listen to but somewhat hard to understand at times.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. Too many characters and hard to follow at times. Spent a lot of time listening to parts over and over.

Any additional comments?

Maybe an abridged copy would have been easier to follow.

Great story, narrator takes time to get used to

An amazing story with very well designed characters but... The narrator was difficult to get used to. She did the voicing well, but when it came to narrating the story bits she would always end on the same pitch or sentence tone. Which made it somewhat annoying to deal with.

Rook Thomas the paranormal Jean Grey.

My first Audible book. Great read. Reminded me a little of the movie Memento. But not so much!