Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Review: Roadkill

Posted by Unknown at 3:54 PM

Roadkill by Rob Thurman
A Cal Leandros Novel

This is the fifth book of the Cal Leandors series, which started with Nightwish.  The books are written from Cal's perspective, and follow him and his brother through their adventures in paranormal New York.  Cal is half human, half monster, but his brother Niko is fully human.  Other characters who make regular appearances are Robin Goodfellow, a puck, and Delilah, a werewolf.

The premise for this book is that Cal and Niko, now running a preternatural private investigation company, are contacted by a gypsy clan to track down a stolen artifact that contains the Plague of the World.  In other words, should the thief open the coffin the Plague is sealed into, the world will end very messily.  So Niko does some research, and he and Cal call up some old friends and everyone goes on a road trip of bloody proportions.

Overall, the book is well written, and Cal’s commentary is as entertaining as always.  However, I really feel like this book is taking place between major story arcs, because while it has the same characters and some of the same themes of previous books, it just doesn’t feel as connected as the previous books were.  The usual ultimate bad guys who haunted the previous four books, the Auphe, are gone and Rob Thurman has chosen not to resurrect them again.  While I can appreciate letting bad guys die with finality and not keep returning a la a Marvel comic book, it has taken away from this book.  I want a replacement arc that will pull me the reader into successive novels, and I didn’t find one here.  Instead, this fills like a mid-season episode for no other purpose than drawing things out and offering character development.

I liked the book, and if you’ve already read the other books, you’ll probably like this one as well.  But this is not the book that’s going to make you want to read everything else Rob Thurman has ever written.

 

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