The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley

The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley.  Little, Brown and Company, 2012.  978-0-316-19327-6.

... in which Myfanwy Thomas awakes with no memory of who she is, and must somehow return to her life as a high-ranking official in a secret government agency that protects the world from supernatural enemies.

Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced miff-uh-ney) wakes up one night and finds herself surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves, with no memory of who she is.  In her pocket, she finds a letter from her pre-amnesiac self, explaining that her name is Myfanwy Thomas and that she is being hunted by people who want to destroy her.  Following the clues from her pre-amnesiac self, Myfanwy Thomas gradually learns that she is a Rook for the Checquy, a top-secret British government agency with hundreds of agents, directed towards protecting the world from various supernatural threats.  Myfanwy's title of Rook places her in the very highest echelon of the Checquy, essentially making her a general in charge of all domestic supernatural problems.  Myfanwy has to continue to follow the clues to discover who she is and who is trying to kill her, while also preventing her dangerous colleagues at the Checquy from discovering her total amnesia, and while preventing a full-scale invasion of horrifying monsters attempting to take over Great Britain.

Kraken, by China Mieville

Kraken, by China Miéville.  Del Rey Books, 2010.  509 pp.  978-0-345-49750-5.

... in which a missing giant squid comes close to causing the end of the world.

For those of you not familiar with China Miéville, it's important to remember that this guy is basically known for writing weird fiction.  So if you don't have a decently high tolerance for weird fiction, this is probably not the author for you.

At its heart, Kraken is a story of faith.  The book opens with Billy Harrow, a curator at London's Natural History Museum, giving a tour of the museum's specimen rooms.  The most interesting specimen in the museum's collection is the body of a giant squid (kraken), preserved in a large glass tank.  When Billy brings the tour group into the squid room, however, the squid and its tank are missing, with no evidence to explain who took it or how they got it out without anyone noticing.  From this point on, Billy finds himself pulled into a conflict in a hidden underworld of London, an underworld involving magic, myths, cults and gods.  At the center of this conflict are four groups: the Church of the God Kraken, the followers of crime lord Grisamentum, the followers of the crime lord known as the Tattoo, and the Londonmancers.  For various reasons, each of these groups want to find the missing squid, because the kraken might have the powers of a god, and it might be the key to ending (or saving) the world, and everyone thinks that Billy is some kind of prophet for the kraken god..