The Adept 1

by Katherine Kurtz

Paperback, 1991

Status

Checked out

Call number

813.54

Publication

Ace (1991), Edition: 1st, 321 pages

Description

Scottish nobleman Sir Adam Sinclair--a physician and Adept--faces an unholy cult of black magicians who defile his beloved Scotland and will commit any atrocity to achieve their evil ends. Reissue.

User reviews

LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom

I must say, I am a total sucker for anything in the occult fiction realm. I like when I find a series that can entertain me for a while, and I think I've found one here. So...if you're looking for some extraordinarily great literature, you're not going to find it here, but you will find a fun story

filled with elements of the arcane and esoteric (along with some Templar knights!). This is just one of those books you read when you need something light and fun.

Set in Scotland (another reason I like this book!) the main character is Sir Adam Sinclair, who is a psychiatrist when he's not busy being keeping the elements of darkness in check. Sinclair leads a very privileged life with a manservant named Humphreys at an estate called Strathmourne, and is well respected in his community. So the story opens with Sir Adam making a visit to a dear friend, where he meets an artist doing her portrait. This artist has the name of Peregrine Lovat (hmm), and Adam realizes he has met another like himself. He takes him under his wing and becomes a sort of mentor to Peregrine. Anyway, it happens that there is some black magic shenanigans at work with the theft of a wizard's sword at the beginning being only the first phase of a plot by a group of unnamed villains.

There were a couple of plot lines that didn't get resolved in this book; whether or not the authors will go back to them in the next book (or in the other 3 after that)I don't know. The end brings a kind of silly surprise.

This book is one just for fun and I plan to read the entire 5-volume series.

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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

It's a very interesting story. Again, I've read it many times before, so I largely knew what would happen ahead of time, but it's a very rich story and I see new things each time I read it. Peregrine is a very handy mechanism for the authors to explain all the mystic, esoteric stuff to their

readers. He's also an interesting person, and I find his reactions to a lot of what he learns both realistic and amusing. The enemy are presented as irredeemably evil and also rather pettily cruel (or perhaps just careless, but it comes to the same result). I enjoy all the ordinary bits of the story, too - the weather, Templemor, their food, Humphrey...the magical bits fit in, and the combination makes for a very convincing world. We get some hints Adam et al don't - some names, mostly - though by the end of the book it's clear that Adam knows things we don't, yet, about the enemy. He's encountered the Lynx symbol before... Good story both as a self-contained adventure and as the intro to the series. I do like Adam - and Peregrine, and Neil, and Lady Laura, and just about everyone (who isn't a bad guy) that we meet.

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LibraryThing member amberwitch

This series consists of some of the worst books I've read. The whole thing consists of cliches on top of cliches. Descriptions meant to create ambience and invoke the images of British upperclass luxury as wll as genteel behaviour are nothing but cardboard cutouts without any life to them and even

less air of authenticity.
The adjectives are generously used, unfortunately with little skill, as th efollowing quote shows"Sitting before the fire in an open-arm chair upholsteres in rose velvet was a slender, silverhaired woman with a spine like a ramrod an eyes that put Peregrine in mind of the goddesses painted on the walls of egyptioan tombs." The plot of the series is that the 'forces of light' are reincarnated in the 20'th century as amongst others Lord Sinclair (sic!), famous physician, and Inspector McLeod, policeman to fight the dark.

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LibraryThing member lewispike

It's not quite up to date, it's more mid 20th Century but it's close enough it's a very familiar world.

Rather saccharinely Christian, as might be expected, but still a good yarn.

LibraryThing member auntieknickers

Fascinating tale with Masonic overtones, romance, and Scotland.

LibraryThing member willowcove

Very good beginning to a non-Deryni series

LibraryThing member jdavidhacker

I ended up with this book along with a number of others from a relative's collection.
From the description, I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a let down. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it was definitely not what I got.
I suppose I anticipated a

bit more of the 'mystic detective' trope, ala Carnacki or so many other examples from weird and pulp fiction. And that's certainly present in a way...but there is an awful lot of almost Victorian/Romantic-esque nobility/rich person stuff here. Much like a lot of classic literature from that era, I find it a little off-putting. Its hard to feel sympathetic to or identify with people so wealthy they have no actual responsibilities or demands on their time. Even artists who benefit from their patronage (which are present here) feel similar to me. Combined with the fact that we get *VERY LIMITED* magic or mystical secret society action until about the last 50 pages of this book. In fact, there's very little action of any kind til that point. Until then, there's a lot meandering not really training, not really teaching, a new protege...a lot of description of rich people's homes and cars and oh so important activities, a *little* investigation...and that's about it. There's also some really heavy christian overtones to the magic, which I wasn't anticipating, but the author goes out of their way to let us know it doesn't *have* to be that way. Unless someone tells me the subsequent books have a pretty hard shift in tone and pacing, I'm out for the rest of the series.

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