Lore and Order

Warlocks of Whitehall, Book 1

By: Steve K Peacock

Narrated by: Sam Legg

"A sardonic, down-to-earth protagonist eases readers into a world of magic." (Kirkus Reviews)

Humberside City, nestled in the north of Britain, is on fire, and it has taken a few weeks for anyone to really notice. The fire brigade have been doing their best, as have the other emergency services, but whoever is behind the fires has been systematically running them ragged. Whitehall is worried. Something doesn’t add up, so they’ve dispatched a warlock - a former illegal mage, pressed into service of the government to deal with matters of the arcane - to look things over.

Jameson Parker is that warlock, and he’s pretty okay with that. His freedoms might be heavily restricted, and any unauthorised use of magic means he’ll be struck down dead instantly, but it could be worse. He gets more or less free rein to swan around Humberside like the big I am, and it gives him a way to atone for his less than stellar past. He’s better off without magic, and he knows it.

But is magic better off without him? The warlocks of Humberside don’t seem to think so, and there are rumblings that, as well as the fires, something big is about to go down. Jameson is not best pleased.

©2014, 2015 Stephen Peacock (P)2024 Stephen Peacock

For Fans of Dresden and Alex Verus

This book started a bit slower than I expected but it was such a steady ramp up in tension I can't point to the event that turned it from a casual listen to I'm staying up late to finish.

Parker clearly has a lot of Dresden influence in his character. It almost feels like I stepped into an alternate reality version of the Dresden Files. as a huge Dresden fan this is a compliment. I'm very interested in further books.

The magic is kept sort of vague which makes sense given the position of the warlocks shown. That said, what was shown has a lot of interesting potential, especially in the last chapter or so.

MMC wants to be John Constantine, but falls short.

The book seemed to be trying very hard to be something it wasn't. I almost didn't finish it, but the second half was a bit better.

there were a few good lines and a few clever bits, but it was mostly pretty irritating.