Our Discussion of Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley

Several of us reread The Rook in preparation for Stiletto, since it has been six years between books. The consensus was that Stiletto did not quite live up to The Rook, but was still delightful. A sampling of our comments are listed below:

• There were some great lines and O’Malley’s humor is still strong, like the nephew in a thermos, and the line that anyone who would want to clone themselves is not someone we want more of, etc.
• We liked the author’s ability to drop in a joke and leave it alone to sink or swim without needing to point it out to us.
• Stiletto started slowly with a lot of info dumps and background, especially related to the Grafters, which some of us liked and which others thought was too much and a little clunky.
• The perspective shifted between characters and, with it, the titles for the characters. Once Felicity and Odette became friends, they dropped the last names and titles.
• The crystal guy was a red herring and didn’t need to be there, but it may be a set up for book 3 or a way to show that the Checquy also have other enemies.
• The appearance of Gestalt (the villain from The Rook) at the end was very unwelcome to some, but others thought it was a clever way to bring the character back.
• It was an interesting culture clash between the Checquy and the Grafters – who is really unnatural?
• Because of the centuries-long hatred between the groups, only the Rook, suffering from amnesia, could broker peace.
• If some of the metaphors were awkward, it may have been that we were hearing them in Odette’s Dutch translation (English was her fourth language).
• The author creates strong female characters, but he sometimes writes them in unbelievable ways – such as when Odette is trying to save the wounded man’s leg in the hospital surrounded by medical personnel and she takes time to note that he’s really cute.
• Grootvader was like a mafia don - making others sacrifice for the family.

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you may have about Stiletto. We gave this title the codes SHO, GB, PNL, FEM, ETH & HOME with an average rating of 4.5.