Sunday, February 22, 2009

A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift

A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift
Kate Griffin
Orbit, Apr 2009, $19.99
ISBN: 0316041254

In London two years ago malevolent mage Robert James Bakker arranged for the death of sorcerer Matthew Swift. No doubt the young man was dead as his unknown adversary left a grand canyon in his chest. His body was never recovered and his killer never found.

Matthew awakens in a strange bed, but no longer occupies his body alone. He has come back from the dead as a "we" with an "electric angel" as his co-occupant. Swift wants vengeance against his unknown culprit so he investigates what happened to him two years ago. He meets magician Dudley Sinclair, who believes Bakker and his evil cabal with the help of Matthew’s seditious apprentice murdered him. Whereas Matthew is willing to die again to obtain vengeance, Dudley wants the entire Bakker cabal dead as all her evil practitioners.

Although the story line is perhaps overly simplistic and too linear, being as straight as the Bonneville Salt Flats track, fans will enjoy the “Resurrection of Matthew Swift”. Swift is an enigmatic protagonist while Sinclair and Bakker seem like Yin and Yang polar opposite practitioners. The key to the engaging urban fantasy is the world of Kate Griffin filled with mages and A MADNESS OF ANGELS feels genuine enabling the reader to get lost in this alternate London.

Harriet Klausner

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