From the blurb:

Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are the Others. Possessors of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists in parallel to our own, each Other owes allegiance either or the Dark or the Light.

Others cannot reproduce reliably, as it is not something conveyed genetically, and the war between Dark and Light left numbers low. So the sides agreed on a truce and formed the Night Watch and the Day watch to ensure balance is maintained.

The Night Watch follows Anton, a Night Watchman who must patrol the city, protecting ordinary people from rogue magicians of the Dark. The novel is sub-divided into three books, each revolving around the same characters and with an overall plot linking the three. In fact the division seems largely unnecessary, except that some time passes between each of the books.

The use of perspective was quite interesting. Each book has a prologue written in third person, but the chapters are written in first person from Anton’s point of view. The style is solid with a good sense of his character.

I found the whole thing a little uneven. It was a touch predictable in places and a little confusing in others. It’s very much a book about strategy as Light and Dark attempt to outmanoeuvre each other while still maintaining the rules of truce. Motivations are deliberately unclear in places and the action sometimes brought twists I had trouble following at first.

I wouldn’t say that any of the ideas it uses are particularly original, but overall, it’s fairly solid and I found it quite an enjoyable read. It’s obviously quite different from the movie of the same name and I rather preferred it.

Whoever at the Daily Telegraph is responsible for calling it “J.K Rowling, Russian style” ought to be shot as should the publisher for having put it on the front cover. Other than the fact it is urban fantasy and involves supernatural creatures, the two are completely different. It’s an ignorant comparison that doesn’t do The Night Watch any credit.