The Identity Thief by Dr Alex Bryant || KappaCino Book Club

With all of the drama this week with the Coronavirus, I missed a couple of days on my quest to post about a new book everyday.  So, let’s just pretend that I didn’t miss a couple of days and crack on with the next book. For this post, I’m looking at The Identity Thief by Dr Alex Bryant.

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The Book

A debut YA novel from Dr Alex Bryant, The Identity Thief, transports the reader to an alternative London where magic exists, but is illegal and doesn’t work anyway. Written for a teenage audience but full of biting wit that will appeal to all ages, The Identity Thief transposes Medieval ideas of witchcraft into modern-day London. Magic is confined to a criminal underworld. A rogue sorcerer called Cuttlefish is causing carnage across the city, while the Sorcery Investigation Department (SID), led by DCI Helen Drake, try to bring him to justice.

However, Helen’s daughter Cass is more preoccupied by the strange new guy who’s joined her school. Hector is awkward, epileptic, Greek, and quickly shunned for all these reasons by the rest of the year. Rumours spread that he’s somehow connected to Cuttlefish. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Cass turns her friends and neighbourhood ever more firmly against his family, before unwittingly bringing Cuttlefish to their door.

By turns hilarious and tragic, The Identity Thief explores social themes including LGBT relationships, neurodivergence, and institutional racism through a magical lens. It responds to calls for diversity in children’s fiction with a cast of richly drawn characters reflecting London’s diverse population.

Thoughts on the Story

I was in two minds about letting Jack read this one but he is a clever boy and managed to read it. Despite being a YA book, the only question he had for me was whether or not certain words were swears. I personally didn’t class any of the language as “swearing” but I can use six swear words, on after another in a sentence and it makes perfect sense. The themes that ran through the story were excellent and provided an outstanding introduction into those difficult to discuss topics that we might have as parents. The layout and design of the book is fun with certain parts taking on the appearance of newspaper clippings which help to break up the text and keep the story moving.

Thoughts on the Author

Dr Alex Bryant is a psychology tutor and improv comedian, appearing twice a month in London’s Museum of Comedy with his troupe Hivemind. With a background in psychiatric research, he’s always been fascinated by delusions: the personal kind that we call madness, and its cultural forms: magic, superstition, and fear of the paranormal. He’s also drawn to trying to understand the dark instincts which break society apart: extremism, racism, fanaticism, and intolerance. These interests led to the world of The God Machine, where both witchcraft and witch-hunts are still commonplace in the modern world.

Dr Alex Bryant said, “I started writing The Identity Thief 10 years ago, and over that time I’ve seen the exaggerated London I created come closer and closer to reality. The newspapers are full of stories about violent magical crime. Fear of sorcery has led to racial tensions, police discrimination, and prejudice towards neurodivergent people.”

Overall

This is an interesting take on a lot of social issues that can be difficult to talk about. By using the medium of magic and an alternate universe, this is a safer way to talk about subjects that are a bit taboo. This is not for the younger reader who can read at an advanced level, not because there is anything wrong with the story, they just won’t vibe with it the same way as teenage readers could.