While recovering from life changing physical and mental injury, Millicent Roper is offered a job at the Arcadia Project, a sort of law enforcement agency. Except the Project’s jurisdiction goes far beyond the human realm: it polices the fey realm as well.
Borderline keeps the pace punchy, but what made it really interesting was the fact that the way Millie sees the world is coloured by her personality disorder, making her a slightly unreliable narrator. Yet she’s not the only one: most of the other characters starring in Borderline are unreliable narrators for various other reasons, from plain unwillingness to show emotion, to vested interests. This asymmetrical distribution of information keeps things forever off-kilter and allows for many, many twists.
Millie’s narration is also punctuated with factual statements about herself - almost as a monologue - but this is often attributed to conscious work done with her therapist. It reads less as an excuse to dump information on the reader and more as the careful work of a diligent student, using the tools she is given to preserve her mental health - something not often seen in the fantasy genre, especially with a protagonist whose circumstances wouldn’t be out of place in a noir mystery as well.
Although there are mystery elements in Borderline, this is a snappy fantasy novel. Characters are often acerbic toward each other, and Baker pulls no punches in putting her characters in danger.
Borderline is an action-filled urban fantasy with an unusual protagonist, well worth reading especially for fans of the genre. If you enjoyed this, you’ll probably like the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, starting with Rivers of London.
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