We picked out this book for bookclub a few months back based partially on the cover and partially on the description. It sounded like a very interesting blend of Sherlock esque stuff and mythological fairy-like creatures.
The book started off a little on the slow side, I was intrigued but it felt a little wandering in plot and ideas. There was plenty of talk of metahominids (the books version of fairies) and how evil they are. by a third of the way in it pulled together and had plenty of action, some great bad guys and abilities and some very interesting cool characters.
I struggled to put the book down until I got to about three-quarters in and then it felt like the book went downhill a little. There were some chunks of text from what seemed like completely pointless points of viw, like an underground train driver, and after setting up lots of different metahominids with different strengths they onle really shot bows and arrows at people.
Also there were a few bits where I got completely confused as to whose point of view it was from. Something was really hinky with the formatting which made it difficult to tell when it switched, but that was only a problem a couple of times.
Finally the ending felt a bit like a wash out. There was some Deus Ex Machina with a plane that our main hero could suddenly just go get and someone’s fairy uncle who suddenly united the fairies, but then they turned out to not understand humans at all. The ending felt rather rushed and like the author had put all these cool fairie powers together and then couldn’t actually think of a way for the good guys to win against those odds, so conveniently made the metahominids weaker all of a sudden.
All in all there was a lot of great potential in the book and I’d definitely read a sequel, just wish it could have ended a little better.