Flight of Magpies is third in the Charm of Magpies series. As it begins, our heroes are in London, there's been a string of supernatural murders committed as well as burglaries that apparently could only have been committed by one of Day's students, and Crane wants nothing more than for the two of them to leave the country together. The justiciary is so understaffed that Day can barely consider so much as leaving town.

Unfortunately, this was probably my least favorite book in this series. In The Magpie Lord, we saw that Day was quite capable of magically kicking ass. Unfortunately, he hasn't had much chance to do so lately. With the continued emphasis on his small size and lack of demonstration of his ability to overpower larger opponents with his magic, the balance of power in his and Crane's relationship seems sadly out of balance. It's been a long time since we've seen that he wouldn't have to allow himself to be "manhandled" (which seems to be a favorite verb of Crane's) if he didn't want it.

This also makes me rather uncomfortable with the plot thread about Crane wanting him to leave the justiciary. Maybe it's true that Day deliberately was being denied the support that he needed actually to do his job, but Crane didn't want him to quit just for his own good. He didn't want Day doing something that occupied so much of his time and kept him away from him, and there's something disconcerting about the person with more power in the relationship wanting the person with less power to walk away from his outside responsibilities for his sake.

I enjoy the world of this series and I'm looking forward to the upcoming spin-off, but the longer this series went on the less I liked the relationship between the heroes.

Overall: B+