The Minority Council

Griffin’s fourth Matthew Swift urban fantasy (after The Neon Court) sees the posthuman Swift struggling to deal with the responsibilities of being Midnight Mayor of London. Powerful and well-intentioned but often naïve and inadvertently destructive, Swift allows events to spiral out of control. When others force him to notice what is going on under his nose, including a particularly twisted scheme by well-intentioned extremists ostensibly working for him, he marshals his impressive resources, but it’s not clear who will pay the cost for his lack of diligence. Griffin’s breakneck plotting and accessible prose are as engaging as ever, but Swift’s apparently willful sloth and ignorance, while convenient to explain how developments reach the point they do, are grating. As less powerful, more motivated characters set the plot in motion, readers may wonder whether Swift should surrender the title of protagonist. (May)