What do you think?
Rate this book
Adept #4
Dagger Magic
He has had many names, lived many lives, but his mission remains the same: to protect the Light from those who would tread the dark roads. He is Sir Adam Sinclair ...
Knight . . . Warrior . . . Doctor . . . Detective . . . Defender of the Light! --THE ADEPT
AN ANCIENT ORDER OF DARKNESS REAWAKENS ... AND A MODERN EVIL RETURNS ...
Deep within a sea cave, sacred texts of the black arts have been recovered from the corroded hulk of a World War II Nazi U-boat. Within those pages lie the power to spawn a new, demonic Fourth Reich—and make an Aryan world conquest a terrifying reality. Now they rest in the hands of the Phurba, a vile Dagger Cult older than Christianity itself.
Only Adam Sinclair and the valiant members of his Hunt can prevent the deadly blades of the Phurba from piercing the hearts of humanity. Only he can quell the darkness that lives in ... DAGGER MAGIC
Book Reviews: Praise for The Adept Book Four: Dagger Magic
“So excellent it needs to be applauded loudly and clearly!” — Chicago Sun Times
“Admirable, elegant … A constantly absorbing story that features excellent pacing, a frequently compelling sense of place, and an equally compelling emotional impact.” — Booklist
“One of those rare books that, once you start reading, you can’t stop.” — SFRA Newsletter
“A late-night turn-the-pager.” — Anne McCaffrey
Knight . . . Warrior . . . Doctor . . . Detective . . . Defender of the Light! --THE ADEPT
AN ANCIENT ORDER OF DARKNESS REAWAKENS ... AND A MODERN EVIL RETURNS ...
Deep within a sea cave, sacred texts of the black arts have been recovered from the corroded hulk of a World War II Nazi U-boat. Within those pages lie the power to spawn a new, demonic Fourth Reich—and make an Aryan world conquest a terrifying reality. Now they rest in the hands of the Phurba, a vile Dagger Cult older than Christianity itself.
Only Adam Sinclair and the valiant members of his Hunt can prevent the deadly blades of the Phurba from piercing the hearts of humanity. Only he can quell the darkness that lives in ... DAGGER MAGIC
Book Reviews: Praise for The Adept Book Four: Dagger Magic
“So excellent it needs to be applauded loudly and clearly!” — Chicago Sun Times
“Admirable, elegant … A constantly absorbing story that features excellent pacing, a frequently compelling sense of place, and an equally compelling emotional impact.” — Booklist
“One of those rare books that, once you start reading, you can’t stop.” — SFRA Newsletter
“A late-night turn-the-pager.” — Anne McCaffrey
331 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
34 people are currently reading
400 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Kurtz
87 books747 followersKatherine Kurtz is an American fantasy novel writer. She is best known for her Deryni series. She currently lives in Virginia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
December 15, 2009
The previous books in this series certainly aren't literature, but they're passable enough as light reading.
This one? Well, this one's a mess.
The general feeling of the book is that the author(s) are just phoning it in. It really doesn't introduce any new ideas or character points from the previous ones, and just feels like the characters are going through the same old motions once again. What few new concepts are invented seem tangential to the plot, hastily thought out, and often internally inconsistent.
To make up for this lack of creativity, they insist on re-describing at length all the things that used to be novel in the previous books, but by now should be understood. You know that feeling in the first chapter of books where they keep name-dropping to refresh the reader's memory? The whole book feels like that. Yes. We remember that. (and I read the previous book once and more than two years ago. If anyone's memory should need jogging, it'd be mine.)
Finally, if you couldn't guess from the cover, the main antagonists in this are Nazis and...wait for it Buddhist monks. Yes, Godwin's law apparently applies to fiction as well as internet forums. While this series admittedly makes its bread and butter on semi-mythical archetypes like Templars and Druids, Nazis and Buddhists are a different thing altogether. They are much more 'real' to the modern world, and do not take as kindly to authors painting their own interpretations onto them. This book certainly does not pull it off. Instead it just feels more than a bit ridiculous.
In short, I'm cranky. I was hoping for a known quantity of semi-mindless amusement, and this absurd retread did not deliver.
This one? Well, this one's a mess.
The general feeling of the book is that the author(s) are just phoning it in. It really doesn't introduce any new ideas or character points from the previous ones, and just feels like the characters are going through the same old motions once again. What few new concepts are invented seem tangential to the plot, hastily thought out, and often internally inconsistent.
To make up for this lack of creativity, they insist on re-describing at length all the things that used to be novel in the previous books, but by now should be understood. You know that feeling in the first chapter of books where they keep name-dropping to refresh the reader's memory? The whole book feels like that. Yes. We remember that. (and I read the previous book once and more than two years ago. If anyone's memory should need jogging, it'd be mine.)
Finally, if you couldn't guess from the cover, the main antagonists in this are Nazis and...wait for it Buddhist monks. Yes, Godwin's law apparently applies to fiction as well as internet forums. While this series admittedly makes its bread and butter on semi-mythical archetypes like Templars and Druids, Nazis and Buddhists are a different thing altogether. They are much more 'real' to the modern world, and do not take as kindly to authors painting their own interpretations onto them. This book certainly does not pull it off. Instead it just feels more than a bit ridiculous.
In short, I'm cranky. I was hoping for a known quantity of semi-mindless amusement, and this absurd retread did not deliver.
February 13, 2024
Where to start... The first 1/3 of the book had nothing to do with the main storyline, the ending was extremely abrupt (after so much build-up), the author's frequent use of the word "Oriental" is problematic, to say the least, and the climax of the book was short-lived and disappointing.
HOWEVER, in saying all that, I found the book to be rather amusing. I was amused with the plot and storyline before even starting the book, and I went into this experience knowing this book would be for amusement purposes only. It was quite entertaining to me, despite its many flaws. It's like when you knowingly watch a bad movie.
Note: I haven't read any other books in this series, and I don't think you need to.
Overall, I'd give this book 3.5/5 (rounded up to 4) stars.
HOWEVER, in saying all that, I found the book to be rather amusing. I was amused with the plot and storyline before even starting the book, and I went into this experience knowing this book would be for amusement purposes only. It was quite entertaining to me, despite its many flaws. It's like when you knowingly watch a bad movie.
Note: I haven't read any other books in this series, and I don't think you need to.
Overall, I'd give this book 3.5/5 (rounded up to 4) stars.
May 31, 2020
I enjoyed reading it but not quite as much, I think, as the previous books in the series. Maybe I just have less interest in Eastern religion, or less comfort with it. It seemed more weird. The villains never do seem to make a lot of sense in what they're doing, but that was more so here. As with a lot of series, I was starting to get the feeling that the authors are looking for something more and different from what they've done in the series already, and for me it just isn't as satisfying. But of course I'll read the last book in the series.
August 2, 2023
The fourth book of the Adept series, This time the Lodge's adversaries are Tibetan black magicians with Nazi connections. They are after a box of Termas--magic scrolls-aboard a sunken German U-boat. They bring in Francis Raeburn, of the Lodge of the Lynx, to help them.
Peregrine, on his honeymoon, is the first to be drawn into this. Adam and his Huntsmen must enlist the help of their Irish counterparts to stop the black Tibetans, but they do keep them from getting the Termas. Raeburn gets away.
Kind of slow at first, but it picks up speed fairly quickly.
Peregrine, on his honeymoon, is the first to be drawn into this. Adam and his Huntsmen must enlist the help of their Irish counterparts to stop the black Tibetans, but they do keep them from getting the Termas. Raeburn gets away.
Kind of slow at first, but it picks up speed fairly quickly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Did not finish
August 23, 2022I couldn't get through my typical 100 pages of this before DNFing. The fact that it is the fourth in a series probably had a lot to do with this. But, I also haven't read a book like this in quite a while and this might not be my thing anymore.
May 31, 2017
Avventura esoterica su una scoperta legata al nazismo
June 20, 2018
Maybe I'm getting used to the mumbo jumbo but enjoyed the story. This one adds Eastern mystical elements to the prior Christian and other assorted mystical powers.
June 10, 2019
Great book!
All of the Adept books are great. Wish some of the typos could be fixed though. At least on my copy
All of the Adept books are great. Wish some of the typos could be fixed though. At least on my copy
March 10, 2020
A riproaring adventure with Nazi Germany providing a historical backdrop
December 7, 2025
interesting. Would like to find the rest of the series, jumping in at book 4 made it a little hard to get started
January 29, 2026
Pleasant extension of the wizards protecting the world.
December 9, 2019
The re-read continues, as I got sucked into this series again.
There's some fun stuff here, with the introduction of some Eastern esoteric traditions and Buddhist thurbas. Nazis, of course, always make the perfect villains, so those ties certainly ramp up the threat, even if what we're actually seeing has more to do with historical Nazis ties to occultism rather than anything to do with a modern ideological affinity.
There's a secondary plot thread that resonates nicely as a counter-point to the primary threat of the anti-Buddists; Adam & Noel investigate "spooky" deaths via unexplained car crashes. It's a much lower-level threat, but a good storyline showing more of what the regular work of Adam's Hunt is: dealing with psychic spillovers, healing those who don't understand or can't control their gifts, and managing that higher Law. There's echoes of our first introduction to Peregrine in this B-plot, and it's nice call-back, even if there's a little too much of the "hypnotism fixes everything!" associated with it. But clearly not every threat or problem is of the earth-shaking scope as the A-plot, so it's nice to see the more daily grind.
The lost Nazi submarine, the return of Francis Raeburn as a foil to Sir Adam, and the dangers of allowing occult treasures previously controlled by the Nazis back out into the world makes for a fairly gripping story. On the other hand, Noel & Peregrine are regulated to sidekick status at best, where they're not mostly sidelined altogether in favor of the glorious Sir Adam (he said with a certain sarcasm). The renewed focus of the perfection of Adam is back in full force here and it's still a little dull. While I'm fairly bored with the modern trend towards massively flawed, unlikable protagonists (I can't even classify many of these as anti-heroes), the unmarred perfection of Sir Adam isn't as compelling as it used to be, especially after 4 books. Adam's problems are things like "my gorgeous, perfect surgeon girlfriend had to go back to America to tend to her dying father for a while so I can't marry her yet" which isn't enough to lend much sympathy, since the party deserving of it is Ximena, not Adam. He's rich, handsome, accomplished, and noble with a huge network of contacts, loads of dedicated and loyal friends and the only real problem he has is black magicians occasionally try to kill him. which is something he's willingly taken on, and they always seem to lose pretty badly anyways. He's a little too good, and not really human enough.
These flaws pop up more noticeably in a binge re-read than they did on first pass, and part of that is simply the publishing schedule. With a year or 2 between books it's a little less noticeable and memory fades some. repetition tricks to refresh memory of early books or reinforce character details are annoying in the binge but were probably necessary for the original publication. And I suspect the perfect Adam Sinclair grated much less with distance between his adventures.
There's some fun stuff here, with the introduction of some Eastern esoteric traditions and Buddhist thurbas. Nazis, of course, always make the perfect villains, so those ties certainly ramp up the threat, even if what we're actually seeing has more to do with historical Nazis ties to occultism rather than anything to do with a modern ideological affinity.
There's a secondary plot thread that resonates nicely as a counter-point to the primary threat of the anti-Buddists; Adam & Noel investigate "spooky" deaths via unexplained car crashes. It's a much lower-level threat, but a good storyline showing more of what the regular work of Adam's Hunt is: dealing with psychic spillovers, healing those who don't understand or can't control their gifts, and managing that higher Law. There's echoes of our first introduction to Peregrine in this B-plot, and it's nice call-back, even if there's a little too much of the "hypnotism fixes everything!" associated with it. But clearly not every threat or problem is of the earth-shaking scope as the A-plot, so it's nice to see the more daily grind.
The lost Nazi submarine, the return of Francis Raeburn as a foil to Sir Adam, and the dangers of allowing occult treasures previously controlled by the Nazis back out into the world makes for a fairly gripping story. On the other hand, Noel & Peregrine are regulated to sidekick status at best, where they're not mostly sidelined altogether in favor of the glorious Sir Adam (he said with a certain sarcasm). The renewed focus of the perfection of Adam is back in full force here and it's still a little dull. While I'm fairly bored with the modern trend towards massively flawed, unlikable protagonists (I can't even classify many of these as anti-heroes), the unmarred perfection of Sir Adam isn't as compelling as it used to be, especially after 4 books. Adam's problems are things like "my gorgeous, perfect surgeon girlfriend had to go back to America to tend to her dying father for a while so I can't marry her yet" which isn't enough to lend much sympathy, since the party deserving of it is Ximena, not Adam. He's rich, handsome, accomplished, and noble with a huge network of contacts, loads of dedicated and loyal friends and the only real problem he has is black magicians occasionally try to kill him. which is something he's willingly taken on, and they always seem to lose pretty badly anyways. He's a little too good, and not really human enough.
These flaws pop up more noticeably in a binge re-read than they did on first pass, and part of that is simply the publishing schedule. With a year or 2 between books it's a little less noticeable and memory fades some. repetition tricks to refresh memory of early books or reinforce character details are annoying in the binge but were probably necessary for the original publication. And I suspect the perfect Adam Sinclair grated much less with distance between his adventures.
October 15, 2021
The series expanding to Ireland and the Continent is, I suppose, only appropriate when considering the current evil is under the direction of a product of a Nazi breeding program and the goal is explicitly world conquest. But pulling in Tibetan mysticism and arcane practices begins to confuse—well, I guess it doesn’t confuse the story, just me. I appreciate the purpose is to emphasize the universality of the Light, as we’ve already seen with Masonic esoterica and even ancient Egyptian paganism. But since I’ve learned that lesson long before I ever heard of Kurtz and Harris, I’d rather have a better understanding of how Light magic is worked under normal circumstances by the Hunting Lodge of Scotland.
March 31, 2013
After the previous book being a stand-alone break, this one returns to Francis Raeburn, the lead villain of the first two books. And the plot?
Evil Nazi Buddhist monks. Seriously.
Okay, and there was a b-plot that was completely unrelated and seemed to come from the need to take a story of more novella length and make it novel length. Really, this book is more a novella and a short story smashed together, and they didn't really fit. Enjoyable, but not much more.
So, one more book in my reread of this series. Ms Kurtz apparently talks from time to time about doing a new book, but I'm not really holding my breath.
For new readers to the series, I might say read the first two books and forget about the rest unless you're a completist like me. Still, this one was better than book three. Still, I might change my mind after rereading the fifth book.
Evil Nazi Buddhist monks. Seriously.
Okay, and there was a b-plot that was completely unrelated and seemed to come from the need to take a story of more novella length and make it novel length. Really, this book is more a novella and a short story smashed together, and they didn't really fit. Enjoyable, but not much more.
So, one more book in my reread of this series. Ms Kurtz apparently talks from time to time about doing a new book, but I'm not really holding my breath.
For new readers to the series, I might say read the first two books and forget about the rest unless you're a completist like me. Still, this one was better than book three. Still, I might change my mind after rereading the fifth book.
April 8, 2009
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2001339.html[return][return]Starts with Irish coastguards discovering a long-wrecked Nazi submarine and being promptly murdered by sinister Asian monks. Then we shift across the water to Scotland where the police are aided by a psychic order of nobility linked to the Templars (and white so therefore not sinister). The first line of page 72 is, "At the heart of the Inner Planes lay the Akashic Records" - and at that point I decided I could read no further. Sorry, life is too short.
March 29, 2012
I enjoyed the previous books in the Adept series. They combined the right blend of history/occult for my tastes. This one, unfortunately, was marred by bad copyediting with typos and dropped words. I enjoyed the scenes between Peregrine and Julia; she finally came alive in this book, rather than the angelic cypher of the earlier books. But it was a slog to get through.
May 4, 2014
Really enjoy this story, but not as much as the previous books. It tends to drag a bit as it crosses previously covered territory. The characters remain interesting and their continuing development does assure that I will read the next book in the series.
December 29, 2022
In my opinion, the weakest of the series! All the Eastern mysticism isn't for me. I found the Phurba cult a bit far-fetched, especially the traveling monks part. When I reread these books, I might skip this one...
May 19, 2021
I have been ready Katherine Kurtz for probably 25 yrs. I love her books, and this is right up to par. Keeps you on the edge of your seat right to the very end. Couldn't put it down. I was feeling a little sleep deprived the next day, but in a good way.
April 21, 2023
If you like any of the other series they write, this is great
Everything they write is great. I have read them all! Recommend anybody read this series. The dragonrider series is another should read.
Everything they write is great. I have read them all! Recommend anybody read this series. The dragonrider series is another should read.
April 4, 2014
This is the fourth volume of the series. While a descent read I don't feel it is as good as the previous volumes
July 26, 2014
Carino se vi piacciono i gialli esoterici, ma la trama è un po' deboluccia e molte scene sembrano un incrocio tra Harry Potter e Holly & Benj. Non credo leggerò altro di questa autrice.
August 14, 2016
I don't remember this book in particular but I know I liked it because I'm continuing to read more of Katherine Kurtz
January 18, 2016
"Dagger Magic" - written by Katherine Kurtz and published in 1995 by Penguin Group. An enjoyable continuation of the Adept series.
November 12, 2016
Fighting evil and magic in Scotland. Tons of fun and excitement.
April 19, 2017
Not as good as others in the series. There is one subplot that basically goes nowhere and the main plot is just OK.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews