The Man from UNDEAD: The Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist

Agent Ward works for UNDEAD, the United Nations Department for the Enforcement and Apprehension of Demons, a vast international agency responsible for magical law enforcement in a world where the Magic Circle is a global conspiracy capable of enforcing world peace and environmental legislation, but generally preferring to stay in the background and do their own mystical thang.

It is thus a shock when the Circle sends a specific request for Ward to investigate the disappearance of a brilliant, but very ordinary chemist, but the circumstances turn out to be anything but ordinary as Ward and his informal partner, the chemist's sister Miranda, travel from Oxford to Wales to Egypt on the trail of a potentially world-shattering conspiracy.

I picked up The Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist as part of a trawl through the urban fantasy available on Kindle. As the start of a primarily epublished series, it has the advantage of being a full length novel available for a pittance as a hook for the books that follow, and it's a pretty good hook. Don't get me wrong; it's not exactly replete with surprises or nuanced characters, but then again it's essentially a fantasy/horror homage to The Man from UNCLE, so treacherous blondes, eccentric - often doomed - experts and insane plans for world domination are not merely expected, they are pretty much de rigueur, and on that standard it's a fun read, well worth the 77p.