Review by Booklist Review
The Prince of Wales is dead. Assassinated, apparently. The Checquy, the top-secret arm of the British government that employs agents with supernatural powers to protect the country from unearthly forces, immediately assigns an agent to protect Princess Louise, the dead man's sister. Enter the twelfth Lady Mondegreen, Alexandra Dennis-Palmer-Hudson-Gilmore-Garnsey (otherwise: Alix), a longtime friend of the royal family. But this is no simple observe-and-protect assignment: in fact Alix, whose own supernatural power allows her to shatter human bones at will, isn't sure which is more difficult, investigating the prince's murder or learning how to be a lady-in-waiting. It is extremely difficult to explain just how thrilling, entertaining, witty, and jaw-droppingly original the Checquy novels are (this is the fourth, the newest since Blitz, 2022). O'Malley's world building is astonishing: he's created a version of our world that is simultaneously wildly different and comfortably familiar, and he's populated it with characters who, even with unusual powers, are abundantly human. For fans of the series, and indeed for anyone who enjoys a good supernatural fantasy, Royal Gambit is required reading.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
O'Malley's fourth thriller featuring the Checquy Group, "a covert agency within the British government that dealt with, and was partially staffed by, the supernatural" (after 2022's Blitz), offers an entertaining blend of fantasy and humor. The Group's oddball missions--like botanist Alix's investigation into "a pot of malevolent nasturtiums in Cumbria that had been directing bees to swarm people and also steal their credit card details"--are interrupted when Edmund, the Prince of Wales, dies suddenly of unknown causes. Suspicions that Edmund was assassinated make identifying the cause a Checquy priority. Those fears intensify after Odette Leliefeld, an alchemist and Checquy ally, discovers a small pyramid emerging from the prince's brain during an autopsy, a bizarre symptom also seen eight years earlier in an American college student. Alix and Odette team up to solve the mystery. As always, O'Malley imbues his imagined world with realistic details and finds plentiful humor in the clash of the supernatural and the bureaucratic. ("For all its astounding capabilities, the Checquy was still a government agency, which meant there were never enough funds or staff for a project.") Series fans will be delighted. (July)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An undercover agent gets drawn into a paranormal murder investigation involving the British royal family that tests her personal loyalties and her own extraordinary abilities. Alexandra Dennis-Palmer-Hudson-Gilmore-Garnsey, also known as the 12th Lady Mondegreen, never asked to join the Checquy Group, a secret government agency that protects British national interests from supernatural threats. When she was a child, her parents allowed the Checquy to take Alix and help develop her signature gift--the ability to energetically shatter bones--so she could become a Pawn, a special operative. Since Alix grew up close to the royal family and had occasionally worked as a bodyguard for them, it seemed only natural to appoint her as lady-in-waiting to her childhood friend Princess Louise after the mysterious death of her brother Edmund, the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. Alix's job with the Checquy Group has suddenly become far more difficult: Not only is she now tasked with actively protecting Louise as the next British monarch but she's also investigating Edmund's demise as a supernatural murder. Clever, complex, and fast-paced, this fantasy thriller's greatest strength is the imaginatively crafted world in which events take place. Everything is possible here in the alternative universe O'Malley creates, including characters who routinely defy all empirical laws by turning into trees and stegosauruses and unusual modes of death involving energetically implanted brain cubes. The occasional borrowed tiara on her head, Alix moves through an environment where nothing is ever quite what it seems. The closer she comes to finding Edmund's killer, the more Alix uncovers about the secrets surrounding her position within both the Checquy Group and the royal family. A smart fantasy thriller that deftly mingles the paranormal with the bureaucratic and mundane. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
