On the HahaFiction shelf
Differently Morphous
DEDA Files · Book 1 · 2018
Alison Arkin has an excellent memory and no magical powers, an awkward discovery after her recruitment into occult training. She finds work with the secret British ministry just as otherworldly creatures become a very public problem. Someone is killing them, and the agents must investigate while their institution faces scrutiny it has spent centuries avoiding.
From the publisher’s blurb
“A magical serial killer is on the loose”Read the full description at Penguin Random House / Dark Horse Books, publisher description
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What makes it funny?
The opening presents slime creatures as a household horror, then gives them smiley faces and a friendly greeting. Alison’s fieldwork brings another kind of spectacle in Doctor Diablerie, a cloaked, top-hatted figure who talks about himself in the third person.
The comedy at work
The ministry’s old monster-hunting habits become difficult to defend when the supposed monsters ask for asylum. Croshaw puts supernatural officials through the arguments, public-relations problems and policy changes of a government department suddenly required to explain itself.
Try this if…
Readers who enjoy a mystery inside an institutional satire have two plots to follow: finding the killer and watching an occult bureaucracy adjust to public life. Kell Shaw’s review praises the way comic setups receive later payoffs.
Good to know
Serial killings sit alongside satire about political language and public policy. Kell Shaw found the beginning took time to become absorbing and describes Diablerie as an acquired taste, while enjoying the mystery’s eventual resolution.
A few distinguishing details
- Friendly slime creatures seeking asylum
- A secret magical ministry forced into public service
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Sources & further reading
- FictionDB reading order
Book information
- Publisher
Publisher
- Kell Shaw review
Review
- Opening sample
Reading sample
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