Oversight, The (Charlie Fletcher) - [Oversight Trilogy 01]

"The end always happens faster than you think."

Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five.

When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.

From Booklist

Starred Review Fletcher wrote screenplays for many years (he wrote for several British TV series, and the 1995 American film Fair Game, among others), but he struck gold as a novelist with 2006’s Stoneheart, the first in a middle-grade fantasy trilogy. Here he sticks to fantasy—this time for adults—with a dark and violent story about an ancient peace that’s about to be broken, an imminent clash between our world and the world of dark magic. The Oversight is the name of the group that has protected our world for centuries, going back to the dawn of history itself; now the group’s members have dwindled to a handful, and they might not be enough to stop the Sluagh, creatures who want to use this world as a hunting ground. There is hope, in the form of a young girl who turns up at the Oversight’s home base, but is the girl the savior of the Oversight, or its ultimate destruction? Richly atmospheric (the evil lurks in the background of every paragraph), the book should be a big hit with supernatural-fantasy readers. This is the first of a projected trilogy, and two things are apparent: three books might not be enough to tell this epic-size story, and the second book can’t come soon enough. --David Pitt

Review

"A teeming world of dark deeds and dark magics, brilliantly realized. This feels like the start of something amazing."—Mike Carey on *The Oversight*

"Fletcher's Victorian London is juicily vivid, and laced with macabre wit. There's a real sense of grim danger, both natural and unnatural, hungrily awaiting the slightest mis-step."—Frances Hardinge on *The Oversight*

"I couldn't stop reading... It really is a richly atmospheric and intensely readable slice of Victoriana: gothic as all get out, with a splendidly eerie sense of the way the unearthly lies cheek-by-jowl with the mundane. Cheerable goodies, grotesque baddies: the whole book is adventurous and flavorsome and gripping. I really enjoyed it."—Adam Roberts on *The Overight*

"The second book can't come soon enough."—Booklist on* The Oversight*

"Utterly enthralling: Charles Dickens meets Susanna Clarke."—Lou Morgan on *The Oversight*

"It's full of clever blendings of real history and imaginary embellishments.... compelling and hypnotic."—Boing Boing on* The Oversight*

"[The] characters inhabit a complex, beautifully plotted adventure that begins a fantasy series. Go on and relish The Oversight without further prompting - then we can all wait eagerly for more!"—Locus on *The Oversight*