Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Book Review: "Taken" by Benedict Jacka


This time last year, I could go weeks without seeing another mage. In mage society I was an unknown and, all in all, that was how I liked it. It’s hard to say what changed. Whatever it was, I got involved in the magical world again and started getting myself a reputation. 

Alex Verus’s insights into the future used to be the best-kept secret in London. Now, with the aid of his apprentice, Luna, his unique investigative talents are all the rage. He just has to be careful about picking his employers, because everyone—even the beautiful woman who practically begs him to run security for a prestigious tournament—has motives that can be hard to predict. And Alex doesn’t do unpredictable. 

But his latest gig just might be impossible. Apprentices have been vanishing without a trace—and someone on the Council could be involved. Alex has no evidence, no witnesses, and no suspects. All he knows is that someone is keeping tabs on him. And after assassins target Luna’s classmate, Alex sees that he doesn’t know the half of it—and that he could be the next to disappear. - from Amazon.com

Alex Verus is back in Jacka's third book in this series. Again it continues off the previous book, with an undetermined, though short, amount of time since the last adventure. Just as the previous stories, I was a bit off in guessing what was going to happen next, but was able to guess the end result, for the most part. The enjoyment was in reading how Jacka took the story, and the character interaction, even if they had no part to the end story. Also, after having read the first two books, there is some new character background for some of the secondary characters, which was sort of nice. I like to drop myself into these type of stories dealing with magic in a current time setting. The stories just don't seem long enough, because I am so immersed that I read through it, sometimes in one sitting.

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