Broken Hero
Arthur Wallace, Book #4
By Jonathan Wood
ISBN # 9781783294534
Author’s Website: http://www.jonathanwoodauthor.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Synopsis
How’s a secret agent meant to catch a break? If it’s not a demi-god going through puberty, it’s a renegade Nazi clockwork army going senile. Or a death cult in Nepal. Or a battery-chewing wizard’s relationship problems. Arthur Wallace, agent of MI37—Britain’s agency for dealing with the supernatural, the extraterrestrial, and the generally odd—has to pull everything together, and he has to do it before a magical bomb tears reality apart…
Review
Broken Hero, starts like any other urban fantasy story, with an insectoid robot smashing its way through the pub that our heroes are drinking in. In this pub, we meet Arthur Wallace, the field leader of the MI37, an English government branch dedicated to solve paranormal problems, and keep the country safe. Their team bonding was going well, until Kayla, the muscles of the team, started a fight with her demigod daughter who is a dreamer, causing a fight in the pub before the metal robot appeared. The problems start there for Arthur, as this encounter with the Uhrwerkmann (metal robots) has left him with some PTSD, as he almost died again. Another thing is that his girlfriend/boss has asked him to move in with her, and a new member for their team “promoted” by MI6, but with the power to shut down MI37. The worst problem for Arthur is the bomb, Uhrwerkgerat, this and all realities if it goes off.
I liked the Broken Hero, it was a very funny story to read and the characters helped the story progress with their own personality. All of the characters were funny, especially Arthur and Clyde, these two had the funniest lines and had me laughing throughout the whole book.
While I liked the story, at the beginning, it was I little hard to follow the storyline; the characters mentioned past events, and if you haven’t read the previous book liked I did, it was a little difficult to follow the story. Once the storyline starts to stay in its own path, it gets more interesting and makes the reader not to want to put their book down.
Another part that I liked were the sub-stories. While the main story was fun and interesting, all the characters had their own personal story to follow, either couples fight, parenting, or even their sex life; at the end all the sub-stories help to humanize the characters and to show the reader that secret agents suffer from the same mundane feelings that everyone else does.
The idea of multiple realities exists and affecting each other, is a topic that I like to read a lot in science fiction and urban fantasy book; for that reason, I liked the idea of the dreamers, who control what parts of those realities truly happened and which ones do not. These concepts are making me consider read the previous books, and also because I want to learn how is that Arthur came to be part of MI37.
When reading the book, the majority will think that the title, Broken Hero, is referring to Arthur and the problems he has, and I do believe it is; but after finishing it and writing this review I come to the conclusion that it could be referring to all characters and even the traitor. Jonathan Wood did a good job when naming this book, it fits well with the events that happened because at one point we all believe we are heroes, and we all can break at one point in our life.
If you are a fan of author Jonathan Wood or the Arthur Wallace series, then I recommend you Broken Hero. In this book, you go on an adventure to save the world with a man that has finally reached a point where his world is falling apart, but he does his best to save those he loves, even if he has to die to do it.
