Department 19

I had been excited to read Department 19 ever since I came across the synopsis many months ago. But once I got my hands on it, the cover threw me. This definitely appeared to be a "boy book," something I don't have a great track record with. Happily, Department 19 turned out to be a "boy book" in the same way Harry Potter is a "boy book." Yes, boys will enjoy it and yes, the protagonist is of the male persuasion, but the action, adventure and even a little romance is clearly gender neutral in appeal.

I try not to read anything that has a military theme involved in the story line. Just, not my thing. Military is definitely a huge part of Department 19, but the story was just so mind blowing I didn't even remember I normally dislike show more military books until I sat down to write this review.

Jamie Carpenter watched as his dad was gunned down by the government after they deemed him a terrorist. Two years later, his mother is kidnapped by a vampire. Seems like two completely different stories, but like everything in this book, these events are shockingly and beautifully linked. Jamie is saved by Victor Frankenstein (yes, I did just write that) and whisked away to Department 19, England's super secret supernatural slaying branch of the government.

As Jamie hunts for his mother, we learn much about Department 19. The paranormal, both in myth and literature, come to life as the history of Department 19 unfolds. Those who love classic horror stories are going to love the way big name favorites are peppered throughout.

I'm not going to lie - I experienced the big ugly cry at the end of Department 19. Not just weeping, but full on sobbing, gasping for breath, snotty mess. Going into this book, I had no idea how much I would become attached to the characters. It was amazing. And heart-wrenching. I'm actually tearing up just thinking about it. Oh, why, Will Hill, why?

Department 19 was phenomenal. I devoured the entire 500+ page book in one sitting and don't think I could have put it down if I had to. This book has all the makings of an epic series and Will Hill is definitely an author to keep your eye on. show less

After reading the summary of this story, I was pretty intrigued and thought it could be quite interesting. Sadly, I quickly realized that the book would not be for me. There were a myriad of things that I did not like about this book: the characters (none of whom I gave a flip about), the jumps in time (which made it even harder to care about the characters, because so rarely did a scene continue on in the next chapter), the rather pompous chapter headings, the fact the vampires can fly (just leap up in the air and fly like birds), and the fact that there are two epilogues.

The timing and plotting of the story seem a bit weak. As an example of the former, I should like to discuss vampire killing. Readers of YA fiction are probably show more expecting Jamie, as the hero of the piece to be a bit of a badass. And he is. After only two days of training (upon the conclusion of which he does the best job of like anyone ever on some simulation test thing). And it's not like he was particularly athletic in school. He seemed really average at the outset and then suddenly he has crazy vampire killin' mojo? I just wasn't buying it; yeah, there's a family history for it, but that really doesn't mean anything.

Not to mention the fact that the whole plot line of it being possible to bring Dracula back to afterlife could have been avoided if everyone were not stupid. Seriously. Spoiler Alert. It occurs to Van Helsing's crew several years later that reanimation from his cremated ashes might be possible, so they go back to Transylvania to make sure he's still there. He is, hurrah! The world is saved. Except that the guys just take the ashes and stick them in a super secure, totally unsinkable room. Which is, of course, breached. Whoever could have seen that clever plot twist coming?!?! What they should have done was dumped the ashes out on a windy day or throne them in the ocean. Good luck finding all of his pieces again.

In the climax of the story, Jamie finally finds Alexandru, having purposefully walked into a very obvious trap, what with Alexandru having left notes for him and all. Alexandru has killed hundreds of people to get Jamie's attention and make sure he comes. After all of that, when Jamie gets there, Jamie's mother yells for him to run to safety and Alexandru tells him "Listen to your mother, boy" (492). These are not the words of the man who's been writing "Tell the boy to come" all over the place in blood.

Another frustrating element was his obsession with Larissa. She tries to kill him at their second meeting. Then, he comes to visit her in her cell and has trouble concentrating on saving his mother, because she looks so lovely with her face all covered in blood. Right... I'm not saying he can't be into a vampire, but, seriously, she's not going to be looking her best just then. Being covered in blood just isn't sexy and, as a True Blood fan, I should know.

For a story with a lot of promise, I thought Department 19 was a major clunker. I was bored pretty much the whole way through (and it's a long way through). Recommended to teen boys with more interest in action scenes and gore than in plot. For me, this is the end, even though a sequel is likely planned. show less

Ever since publisher Harper Collins held a press event at the Cabinet War Rooms last September there has been a lot of talk amongst bloggers about this book. Now it is finally released, is that early buzz justified? Hell yes - every single word of it. It is possibly the best teen action horror story I have ever read and if managed well I can see a very bright future for it, including movie deals, video games and so on, with a franchise that could rival the megastardom of Resident Evil. I think a minority of authors these days write books with the hope that it will be picked up by a Hollywood movie company who will plough millions of dollars into turning it into a blockbuster release - if ever there was a book that deserved that sort of show more treatment then it is Department 19, although at no point does it feel as if Will Hill has deliberately set out with this in mind. In fact, very early on in my reading of the book it wasn't so much movie treatment I was thinking, but just how easily the plot, characters, monsters, locations, weapons and vehicles would transfer over to the PS3 or X-Box as a superb First Person Shooter.

The basic premise of Department 19 revolves around one simple question: What if Bram Stoker's Dracula had not been a work of fiction? From this one question we find ourselves joining the dots and the only conclusion we can come to is that if it wasn't fiction then the only possible alternative is that his much loved story is in fact an account of a real life battle between good and evil. Sometimes great books are born from such simple questions, and Department 19 is one of these as it follows the assumption that if Dracula was real, then so were Van Helsing, Harker, Holmwood et al. I can just imagine the excitement Will Hill must have felt as his synapses started firing as he answered every subsequent question that arose, making connection after connection and thereby coming up with the idea for the secret branch of the government that is Department 19.

What really makes Department 19 something much more than your average action horror is the back story that Will Hill has created. Not content to have his young hero battling all kinds of evil, he makes sure that the reader truly believes in the world he has created. The action occasionally leaps back in time, and as readers we are able to follow the adventures of Van Helsing and gang in the early years of the Department. We also get to find out how Jamie's ancestor, John Carpenter, first met Frankenstein, saved his life, and then the latter making a vow that goes on to be honoured for generations of the Carpenter family. Oh, did I not say that Frankenstein's monster was real as well? Keep up - surely if Dracula was real then Big Frank has to be as well, but this time he is fighting for the good guys. If you trawl back through the Spill The Ink blog you will see photos of some of Will's handwritten notes, showing family trees of his characters, a list of the previous commanding officers of Department 19, a guide to the strengths and weaknesses of vampires, and even a detailed list of authorisation codes for the various members of Department 19. And I am sure that this is just a tiny selection of his notes - the detail the author must have gone in to to ensure that his world seemed real must be hundreds of pages in length, and that's in addition to the research he must have carried out into the various historical aspects of his back story.

As well as great back story, Will Hill is also highly skilled at other aspects of the craft of writing. This book has a multitude of great characters, some of whom are not fully fleshed out in this first instalment, but promise to be interesting members of the cast in future stories. Best of all, some of the best characters in the story are the vampires themselves (hey... everyone loves a good villain!). These are certainly not the insipid, vacuous blood suckers that we have had to endure in recent years - Will Hill has drawn on the nastiest examples of these creatures to create his monsters for his inspiration, and in doing so has reclaimed the vampire from the girly, fawning Twilight brigade.These monsters are Homicidal (and yes, I meant that with a capital H): think the sheer single-minded evilness of Kurt Barlow from 'Salem's Lot, the ambition of Deacon Frost from Blade, the sadistic bloodlust of Marlow from 30 Days of Night. Nasty, every one of them, and that is what Alexandru, Valentin and their various minions are like. However just as all these vampires from the annals of horror are very different characters, so too are Will Hill's creations, each with their own personality traits and motivations.

Mr Hill also knows how to write action scenes that leave the reader breathless; over the years I have read many action thrillers, both for kids and adults, and Will Hill's writing of the all-important fight and chase scenes is up there with the best of them. Of course, many of these scenes involve Jamie, Frank et al battling against the evil vampiric hordes, but thanks to the imagination of the author they have a lot more than wooden stakes in their armoury. These vampire hunters are like the British SAS, US Navy SEALs and the Israeli Sayeret Matkal all rolled into one, and they come armed to the teeth with UV cannons, MP5 machine guns, armoured vehicles and best of all, the T-18 pneumatic launcher, aka the T-Bone. One squeeze on the trigger of this marvel of ingenuity and a metal stake explodes from its barrel, with devastating effect for any vampire that just happens to be in its line of fire. But that's not all: said stake has a trailing wire attached to it, which then pulls the stake back into the barrel, and it is reloaded and ready to fire all over again. Genius! How I would love to see Edward Cullen on the receiving end of this weapon.

On top of all this the dialogue that Will Hill writes also flows well throughout the story, and is never intrusive or unrealistic. It fits the characters, and the various time periods in which we see them. And this is his début novel - I imagine there will be many an aspiring author sticking pins in Will Hill voodoo dolls whilst going slowly green with envy.

I read a couple of early reviews of Department 19 on here a while back, written by someone as part of the Amazon Vine programme. Said reviewer, at the end of an otherwise cracking review, questioned whether Will Hill's treatment of Stoker and Shelley in their respective flashback scenes showed disrespect to these two authors. Another reviewer questioned the credibility of some of the plot. I think these reviewers take themselves a little too seriously, obviously know little about teen fiction and need to carefully remove the self-righteous rods from their proverbials. To the first I would ask how can an author who has written a book that treats the creations of these two authors with such reverence be accused of disrespecting their characters? I would not be surprised if many kids who have not yet discovered the joys of Dracula and Frankenstein will actually be encouraged to pick up these books for the first time following a reading of Department 19. And to reviewer number two I would proclaim that teen boys (and many, many girls) are going to totally love this book - they won't care about 100% credibility when there is such an exciting, fast-paced, well-written story to hold their attention. At what age did this reviewer lose the ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy a full-on action adventure story for what it is?

Department 19 is the first book in a series, but unlike many books like this it does bring the main plot of the story to something of a natural conclusion. However, Will Hill very cleverly tacks on a couple of epilogues that have the reader salivating even more for a sequel as he teases us with a couple of very short scenes that in just a few pages set us up for some very exciting plot developments that no doubt will appear in the sequel. I have no idea how many books are planned in this series at the moment, but I am more than happy to keep on reading them for years to come if they are as good as Department 19.

Back in November some bloggers got a little carried away on Twitter by proclaiming Department 19 to be the next Harry Potter. If I'm brutally honest I cannot agree with this as the secret behind Harry Potter's success was its cross-generational appeal, and it was only in the later books in the series that the plot started to get a lot darker and less kid-friendly, but by then everyone was already hooked. Department 19 will sadly not achieve this broad spectrum of appeal as it is certainly not suitable for younger kids and may create a few premature heart attacks amongst the blue-rinse brigade - it is after all an action horror story with many a gory moment, and any movie made would certainly not get a PG rating. We have also heard many publishers in recent years claiming that this new book or that new book will be the next HP - I remember Chicken House saying something akin to this about the Tunnels series (good, but hardly flying off the shelves HP-style), and I wouldn't be surprised if Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books were also touted like this at some point. However, in my mind Department 19 is far better than all of these, and in this case I feel the hype is very much deserved. I have already stated that another book will have to be pretty darn special to beat Department 19 to the top spot in my list of Books of the Year for 2011 - I am more than happy to be proven wrong as that would mean yet another outstanding book is on the shelves, helping even more young people to develop an enjoyment of reading for pleasure. show less

Lux E Tenebris – Light out of darkness. Remember that...

Well this book just proved it. I knew vampires were real! I just knew it! I could have called this situation a LONG time ago. You know what I’m talking about - the government secret service whose number one responsibility is to keep society safe from those paranormal baddies that roam the streets in search of mayhem and lots of gore and blood. Well, they’re out there and they’re REAL!! So watch out! :0

Department 19 is an extremely entertaining book that’s not even my normal type of read, but I do have to say that I got carried away with this fast paced, full on gore adventure. To say this book has it all is a huge understatement. Its pages are fully loaded with knuckle show more punching adventure, high stakes intrigue, constant mystery, mind blowing action and a light romance that is all perfectly blended and wrapped with glossy paranormal packaging.

I was actually a bit shocked to find myself sucked into this book no pun intended. The writing is smooth and constantly progressive, the characters are a great cast of entertainers, including Van Helsing, Frankenstein (who I happen to be a big fan of... ahem...ahem... Hannah^^:D), and Bram Stoker; and the setting is so vividly described that you can’t help feeling like you’re in the middle of the fray.

Department 19 takes place in two time settings. There’s the present where our main progtag Jamie Carpenter finds himself immersed in the troughs of this secret government agency when his mother goes missing. He discovers that he’s a descendant of one of the six great families of Blacklight that was founded back in 1892 by Van Helsing who was entrusted the protection of the Empire by the government. However, Jamie is weighed down by the traitorous actions of his father who died two years prior during an event that endangered the agency; and this secret service is not easy to forgive or forget the acts of his father. Not to mention he is suddenly slammed with the hard fact that vampires ARE REAL!! FOR REAL!! and his mom was taken by one of the biggest most baddest of them all. So when Jamie goes in search of his mom, with the help of Frankenstein and Larissa the vampire, he discovers he can redefine himself despite his past. Jamie’s strength and skill prove him to be a force to be recognized by the very organization that casted him aside.

All great stuff that is both unique and highly entertaining. I enjoyed this book quite a bit and surprisingly didn’t find myself creeped out by the massive amounts of gore and pages and pages of violence. Great read for paranormal fans that are looking for something different but fun.

Thanks Morgan for challenging me to read this. Great pick!!

Song Choice: This song is pretty harsh and violent, but so is this book, so listen with caution.Breaking Benjamin - Lights Out show less

Everyone knows that vampires are the big trend these days. So picking up Department 19, one might be subject to believe that it is just like all the rest. But Will Hill’s debut novel is far from unoriginal. He leaves no plot holes, but leaves the reader craving more. His characters feel realistic and it’s not hard to get sucked up in the story.

Jamie Carpenter's life is ripped apart first when is father is killed for allegedly betraying the country, and then again when his mother is kidnapped by mysterious creatures and he is hauled off to Department 19, the government's most top secret agency. He is about to learn that he has a stronger tie to Department 19 than he knows.

One of the greatest things that the book did for me was the show more vampires themselves. They drank blood, they were ruthless, they burned in the sun, and they were the disturbing monsters that I would expect vampires to be. Hill reverts his vampires back to how they used to be, which is fresh and a nice change of pace from all the other vampire novels out there.

As a lover of Dracula, I found the tie-in to the classic novel in Hill’s book delightful. Dracula can leave a lot of people wondering what happened next after the book was finished, and Department 19 fills this gap. Hill manages Stoker’s characters well, and it is clear he did all of his research before writing his book. Even if someone has not read Dracula, it is easy to pick up on what happened in the story, and what it means for Department 19. And as for those who have, it is a nice treat to revisit Van Helsing and the rest of the gang and find out what happened to them.

I hope that Department 19 and the following books in the series really take off. The story takes a classic story, throws in some original characters, and takes the reader to a hidden war that has been going on for decades. I hope Department 19 does not get bogged down and lost in all of the other vampire books, and reaches its potential. The book is unafraid of itself and isn’t afraid to go into the gory details. I would highly recommend it to anyone, even those who do not normally read vampire or fantasy stories. I for one will be picking up the next book as soon as it hits shelves. show less

If I tell you to just read this book, will you listen? Didn't think so. If I tell you that there is no sparkly vampires, lots of blood, and guts, will you be curious? You should. If I tell you that I wanted to put the book down when Frankenstein was introduced as a character, will you shy away? You shouldn't. I'm glad that I didn't set the book down.

Department 19 should be a big hit. If it isn't, I have lost my faith. It has so much going for it. Let me explain:

First....

Jamie Carpenter. Poor Jamie. His dad is dead. His dad is dead because his dad was a traitor to his country. Or was he? Jamie will go into my record book as one of the best written teenage characters EVER. From the opening paragraphs to the last page, I felt for him. I show more felt his heartache when he was so very lonely, and angry, that he would rather turn his back to his mom, than share her grief in losing his dad. I felt for him when he first realized that the world is not what it seems and he'll play a major part in this new world. I felt for him when he first realized, by the blood drops on the window sill, that his mom was missing and his last words to her were words of anger. If you don't instantly feel for Jamie's character, something is wrong.

2nd....

There are no sparkly vampires in this book. Got it?

3rd....

There is an actual storyline in this book. A real one, not a love triangle with a story written around it.

4th....

It's an easy read, a fast read and appropriate for teens and adult. The violence is a bit graphic because the vampires don't sparkle they bite, and rip and kill but I think teens can handle it.

Overall-

Love it. Going to keep my copy. That should tell you something. show less

It's rare for me to write a book review when I'm still reading a book. In fact, this is the first time I've ever done so. But Department 19 by Will Hill is an amazing, creepy, delightful book. With characters taken from the greatest "monster" books ever written, such as Frankenstein and Dracula, the author brings these Gothic characters to life in our 21st century world complete with cell phones and the ever-annoying paperwork required from any governmental agency.

I won this book through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing, and I'm so glad that I did! I would never have picked up this book on my own. (Hmm, that means I'm too set in my ways when it comes to choosing books, time to switch genres.) What a wonderful break from all show more the "Twilight lookalikes" flooding the market right now. That's not even a fair comparison; those books are about finding love in spite of unexpected circumstances, while Department 19 is about the monsters under your bed and the government agency that's supposed to protect you from them.

Unless the 2nd half of the book bombs, I'm giving Department 19 by Will Hill a 5 out of 5 star rating. I will add that it does help to have an idea of who the characters were in books like Dracula and Frankenstein, but it's not entirely necessary.

To repeat what another reviewer said: I'm keeping my copy--you'll have to get your own!

EDIT: I have finished the book, and still feel that this is a 5-star, creepy and not-to-be-missed book. Also, while I believe this is the first book of a trilogy, this book can be read as a stand-alone novel, and with the exception of the last 5 pages or so, comes to a satisfying and complete conclusion on its own. show less