Also known as "Spook's: I Am Grimalkin" by Joseph Delaney.
I decided to go back to the Last Apprentice/The Spook series since it had been a while since I had read the last book. This one dealt nearly exclusively with Grimalkin, the witch assassin of the Malkin clan of witches. We last saw her leaving Tom Ward and the Spook, John Gregory, after they had trapped and beheaded the Fiend. Grimalkin is now on the run from her sister witches with the Fiends head in a bag. If they capture her they will bring back the Fiend.
I rather enjoyed this one. It was a fast read since it was full of action Also the character of Grimalkin is a fascinating one. We learn why she hates the Fiend so much despite being a malevolent witch herself. We learn why she became a witch-assassin too and some of her early training.
We also learn a lot more about all these witches. For example, Grimalkin has an apprentice of her own, Thorn, a girl she is training to be the next witch assassin. Grimalkin cares quite a lot for this girl and takes pride in her accomplishments much like a mother would. She also cares for Alice Dean and Agnes Sowerbutts, two other witches we have seen in the past. Even when acting evil, these witches are very, very human. Which really puts the past books and especially John Gregory's behavior in some very dark light. In the end, I was asking who was truly the evil one here?
The book has a great build up but the final battle at the end is over too soon in my mind.
You can find all of Joseph Delaney's Spook's series and books here: http://www.spooksbooks.com/
Books Read so far: 21
Level: Crone!
Witches in this book: 4 featured, hundreds implied.
Are they Good Witches or Bad Witches: They are supposed to be evil witches, but a lot in this made me rethink that.
Best RPG to Emulate it: Nearly any D&D game would work great.
Use in WotWQ: Grimalkin is such a great character. I would LOVE to use her or someone like her in my War of the Witch Queens game.
A while back after I finished Rage of the Fallen I worked up Grimalkin for Pathfinder. I thought it was great, it captured the character well I thought. For this book I wanted to give her a try for the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition game.
The D&D5 game does not have witches (yet) but they do have Warlocks, and for this character that works out well to be honest. She has a "Fiend Pact" which I felt was appropriate given her background in the books. I went with the variant human so I could give her a dual wielding feat.
I suppose I could have made her Warlock/Ranger as some sort of hunter too, but I liked the idea of giving her the Rogue (Assassin) class. Maybe I'll try that out with another system.
Grimalkin, the Witch/Assassin for D&D 5th Edition.
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