Book Review - Daniel O'Malley's Blitz
Blitz by Daniel O'Malley
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: October 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 688 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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Lynette Binns was raised in care and has a deep suspicion of government and bureaucracy. She has created a life for herself and her family. She's a librarian, her husband is a respected cop, her daughter is the light of her life, and her dog, well, he might just be a dog but she loves him. Then one day lightning arcs out of her body destroying her kitchen. The Checquy swoop in. They tell her she has dangerous powers, but they can help her learn to control them. She's not really given an option. She is back in the system and attending school with children on a remote island while her family thinks she's fighting for her life with some rare disease. Well, at least they're right about the whole "fighting for her life part." But surprisingly she learns control, she becomes strong and powerful. She likes the new Lynette, the Delouser. And yes, it's best not to ask about the nickname. Oh, how she wishes it was cooler. She works hard at her new life and just when she thinks everything will work out a report crosses her desk. Someone is killing criminals in London, someone whose signature matches her own. Because whenever she uses her power she leaves behind a double circle. The Checquy have assured her that all powers are unique and that if anyone uses their power for nefarious purposes the policy is to shoot first and ask questions later. Knowing that she has been handed her own death warrant, she goes on the run. If she can find the real killer before the Checquy catch up to her perhaps she has a chance of holding on to her new life, or any life for that matter. Little does she know that her problems are linked to a string of deaths that happened during the Blitz. Bridget Mangan and her two best friends, Usha and Pamela, were on the tail of a Nazis whose plane Pamela downed. If it hadn't been bad enough that Pamela broke the rules, the Checquy is to avoid escalating the war at all costs by using their powers, the fact that there was a surviving witness who could identify them is catastrophic. A surviving witness who happens to have powers. But they can't tell the higher ups. They have to find the powered Nazis while also going about their day to day assignments, and for Bridget that means finding out how certain artifacts have gotten into public hands when they were safely in the Checquy vaults. An assignment that brings her into the orbit of the criminal madame, Tillie Murcutt. The problem with Tillie is she knows more than the public. She knows about powered people. Which means, could it be possible she knows about the Nazis?
Blitz is an odd entry into the Checquy Files because it feels like it's suffering from a split personality disorder. It can't decide if it wants Lynette Binns to be the heroine or Bridget Mangan to be the heroine. Which means it can't decide if it wants to be about the present or the past. Daniel O'Malley's workaround to this problem was to make the book about both of them instead of thinking what would best service the narrative. Which, given his writing style of stacking infodumps like nesting dolls and letting his book run to blunt weapon size, wasn't unexpected. And yes, I can see the appeal of Lynette, an "older" woman joining the Checquy and having to navigate this strange world, and I won't say that Daniel O'Malley wrote this entire book just to get some quality boarding school scenes in, but I think it's pretty obvious that he did. Also, the truth is, Lynette's story does have heart, and a connection to Bridget, it's just that it wasn't enough of a connection to justify her story. Because honestly, the only reason to have a modern section is to include our previous heroines, Myfanwy Thomas and Odette Leliefeld. Which he did. Barely. I think Myfanwy has two lines, Odette a few more. And just getting glimpses of them might actually have been more painful than if they hadn't shown up at all. Which is why this book should have been entirely set during World War II. On the whole I tend to avoid historical fiction or historical fantasy set during World War II because I feel that it's an overused time period. Enough is enough already, there were other wars! But Daniel O'Malley did the impossible, and through unique characters and their highly unique powers, made me actual embrace World War II after many years of avoidance. The more a thought about Blitz I likened it to when Torchwood showed us what it's third iteration was like during the Victorian Era with Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd. I really enjoyed that dip into the past to see how the organization developed over time. And just like Torchwood, here we know about the present day power structure, so we didn't need Lynette, we just needed Bridget. We just needed a terrifying and delightfully different romp through the Battle of Britain. Because during the War, I might not have had Myfanwy, but I at least had Tillie Murcutt. And Tillie Murcutt is one in a million.
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