By David Devereaux
Eagle Rising is the follow-up to Hunter’s Moon, the book that introduced us to the morally flawed anti-hero ‘Jack’, a kind of special forces magician that works for an unnamed secret government agency fighting the mystical forces of evil so that we can all carry on our gloriously unenlightened lives of M&S boil-in-the-bag meals and reality TV.
We meet Jack a couple of years-ish later on an undercover mission to infiltrate a band of neo-Nazi, racist, homophobic thugs with links to people of real power, in big business, who are actually planning something much more nefarious. Jack gets his ‘in’ via a mid-level pawn at a city brokers who introduces him to the powers that be, but as Jack ingratiates himself into their company things are complicated by the arrival of another undercover agent from a rival agency. She (well, it had to be really) and Jack join forces by posing as a courting couple but things begin to get out of control when they finally discover the brutal truth of the occult groups attempts to resurrect one of history’s most notoriously evil men…..
Eagle Rising unfolds reasonably with Jack investigating, studying and slowly infiltrating in order to get to the heart of the organisation. On the way he has to deal with the mindless thuggery of the lower orders as they get drunk and go out beating up immigrants and homosexuals for fun and he must be seen to be keen in order to fit in. This, for me, should have opened up some debate in jack’s mind about the means justifying then end but he seems rather sanguine about it. Now this may sit well with a ‘does what’s necessary’ hero but even the hardest of hard men should at least think twice when confronted with wanton and undeserved violence – at least if they’re one of the good guys.
When the plot does start to heat up it does so in a methodical manner but the passage of time in the book is quite slow. Weeks turn into months while jack waits for the next ‘in’ to get the next level of the organisation and while this may be realistic, it’s not particularly gripping and the up and down pace of the book often made me wish it would get a wiggle on and get to the good stuff. This changes by almost 180 degrees as you get to the end of the story where so much is crammed into such a short space of time that it starts to become confused, and a little bit of flipping back-and-forth to take stock becomes necessary in order to keep your mind on what is going on.
That’s not to say it’s unreadable though, far from it. It may be missing the sexy shenanigans of its predecessor but it does have some decent thrills and spills in the action and there’s no doubt that Mr Devereux’s writing and characterisation have improved no end. The plot may be about as far-fetched as it’s possible to get but it’s an enjoyable read for the commute or a holiday and nothing but honest in it’s efforts to entertain and works well for all that. I’m looking forward to Jack’s next outing for a number of reasons but not least to see David Devereux’s writing will go next.
Eagle Rising is published by Gollancz and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.
David Devereaux can be found online at www.david-devereux.com.