Gerald Dunwoody is a wizard with a problem. On paper, he is a Third Grade wizard with modest credentials and a career in factory compliance inspections. In practice, his magical abilities are wildly more powerful than his rating suggests, a fact he discovers in the worst possible way when he accidentally blows up a factory. Rather than ending his career, the disaster leads to a chain of events where Gerald defeats a rogue king and gets recruited by the Department of Thaumaturgy as a secret agent.
Gerald is not the typical action hero. He is anxious, self-deprecating, and frequently overwhelmed by the situations he lands in. What makes him effective is his raw magical talent combined with a stubborn refusal to let innocent people get hurt. He is helped by two equally unusual companions: Princess Melissande, who has no patience for incompetent bureaucrats and prefers practical solutions to royal protocol, and Reg, a talking bird who was once a powerful witch and who offers a constant stream of sharp opinions about everything.
Karen Miller wrote the four Rogue Agent novels under the pen name K.E. Mills, with Orbit Books publishing them between 2008 and 2011. The series blends fantasy with humor, playing Gerald’s dangerous assignments against his perpetual disbelief that he is the one being sent to handle them.
Reading Order
See the complete Rogue Agent reading order for all books in the series.