Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
In the basement of a bookshop in one of the more photogenic [aka quaint] suburbs of London a secret society meets every six months for the purpose of locating and retrieving magical objects. When they get wind of an ‘unknowable object’ having turned up in Hong Kong the society sends its youngest member, Magda Sparks to collect it.
Within hours of arriving in South Asia Magda comes face to face with a professional killer who is willing to go to any lengths to control the object she has come to collect and any other he can lay his hands on. Equally dangerous are the secrets the society has been keeping from its own members that suggest another and far darker aspect to its origins and motives.
This is a novel that unites flights of imaginative fancy bending the rules of the world as we think we know it with some of the darker impulses ruling human nature. Central to this is magic, not, in this instance, a thing of wands and whimsy so much as a force so powerful it allows those who wield it to reshape reality, doing great harm in the process.
The most appealing thing about this book is that Frank, Magda, and the other members of the society aren’t invincible super beings protecting humanity. They are ordinary people negotiating extraordinary situations and picking up physical and emotional bruises as they go in ways that are entirely believable.
The same might be said of the opponents they face, calling them villains would drag things undeservedly back into comic book territory. One is motivated by an entirely realistic mix of insecurity and lust for power, the other, it could be argued, is more a victim of magic than a villain bent on misusing its power.
This is a clever and insightful novel that skilfully unites the thriller and fantasy genres without disappointing fans of either. Its ending suggests there may be potential for a second outing for the Society of Unknowable Objects, if so, that will be worth waiting for.
