In many ways I feel quite envious of people who haven’t yet discovered the Crow Investigations series of books. The Magpie Key is the eighth title in that collection and I thoroughly recommend reading them all in sequence. Although you could take this as a standalone book it would be highly unsatisfactory. This book took a couple of extra days to read because as soon as I started it I had an urge to go back and re-read the book before – The Broken Cage. As with all the other books in this series it had ended on a massive cliffhanger and although I had intended to just go for the last few chapters I ended up consuming the whole story again. Feathers!
The Magpie Key picks up the action on the canal bank at Kings Cross and the situation with Fleet is becoming ever more complicated. As the series has progressed Lydia’s power has been charging up those around her. Jason, the resident ghost in her office, is now able to take corporeal form and is now her top investigator and supplier of cups of tea and hot chocolate! It appears that Fleet too is similarly affected and the prolonged exposure to Lydia is pushing his own latent gifts to the surface. Unfortunately these “gifts” leave him feeling like he is going quite mad.
To further add to the stress, Uncle Charlie is trying to stir things up from his prison cell and the truce between the four magical families lies in tatters. How can Lydia reassert her place as Head of the Crows and keep the peace in London? The more I read of this series of books the more I want to see it reimagined on the small screen as a TV series. The characters are all so vivid and colourful that it would transition beautifully to a screenplay. Naturally this one also ends with a lot of unresolved threads but that just makes you excited for instalment number nine!
Supplied by Siskin Press and Sarah Painter in exchange for an honest review.
UK Publication Date: Oct 20 2022. 314 pages.
Categories: 4 Stars Book Review
angelnet69
Prolific reader, enthusiastic theatre and movie-goer and ex-Olivier Awards judge who spent twenty years working in the music industry in London. Sharing my house with a gorgeous cockapoo called Harry who has taken over completely.
I love sharing my favourite books with friends - nearly always spoiler-free as I hate reading a synopsis of the whole book in other reviews.
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