Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2016
Reviewer Rating: 
Reviewer: SJ Higbee
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I have read a steady stream of positive reviews for this book, and being a bibliophile myself, I treated myself to this one a while ago. It was high time I got around to it, so I did.
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she’s posted to an alternative London. Their mission–to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it’s already been stolen. London’s underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book.
Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested–the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene’s new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own. Soon, she’s up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option–the nature of reality itself is at stake.
I really enjoyed Irene’s character–brought up knowing that she would eventually always work for the Library as her parents were both Librarians, she is slightly apart from many of her colleagues. She is also cool-headed and used to keeping her own counsel–quite different from many of the rather emotional protagonists we are used to seeing in fantasy adventure. I enjoyed watching her character progress throughout the book, particularly as she has to accept that the Library might not be as principled about using its hapless employees as she likes to think.
She is supported by her new assistant Kai, who is something of a puzzle. Cogman nicely builds up the tension as Irene struggles in a hostile world someone alongside that she does not fully trust. I really enjoyed Cogman’s trick of presenting us with the situation only for us to discover that all is not what it seems–my favorite kind of storytelling.
The pacing and steady increase in the stakes and danger level of this adventure is very well handled. Given the rigorous rules Irene has to abide by and the particular way the world works, it would have been all too easy for the tension to trickle away in wordy explanations. Cogman avoids this trap with the dexterity of someone who clearly knows what she is doing.
Having wound up the story so that I stayed up way too late to find out what would happen next, the climax had to be something special. And it is. We have a nicely nasty antagonist who I outright hated and will clearly continue to pose all sorts of dark threats in later books.
Several other book bloggers have mentioned how as soon as they completed The Invisible Library, they immediately went on to read the second book in the series, The Masked City. If I had had the second book to hand. I would certainly have done the same thing. As it is, I have ordered it from the library (sadly not the invisible variety) and look forward to reading the next slice of Irene’s adventure very soon. Highly recommended.
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