Review: A Trade of Blood

A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ana and Din return for their third mystery, and unlike with Robert Jackson Bennett’s other stories, it looks like this will not be a trilogy conclusion. And thank God for that, because each book in this saga has given us just another little taste of the secrets of the empire, and I hope to see at least one or two more books to extend deeper into its heart. But for now, we’re now progressing into a middle ring of the imperial land, with a most insidious mystery involving a pair of feuding families in the style of Romeo & Juliet - with Din’s previously unseen sister Fotia, Fo for short, now betrothed to a young man in one of those families - and some terrifying mind controlling fungus that isn’t supposed to infect humans, and yet. For this book, Bennett is giving us The Last of Us with a Clue expansion pack, and I’m really hoping this one gets another Hugo like the first book because it bloody deserves one.

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Review: Firestorm

Firestorm by Nevada Barr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice..." And for this fourth Anna Pigeon novel, Barr couldn't decide on one or the other, so why not both? Set at Lassen Volcanic National Park, the book begins with a fire raging through the woods, quickly followed by a winter storm to trap Anna with several other wildland firefighters, one of whom is almost certainly a murderer. With its particular setting in far Northern California, it almost feels prophetic, having a wildfire so close to winter in the same region as the Camp Fire that devastated the town of Paradise in 2018. And unlike the previous book, this one, with its mountain setting and volatile weather, could easily be adapted into an episode of the USA/Crave series with a simple setting switch to Glacier National Park.

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Review: Ill Wind

Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The third Anna Pigeon novel returns to the same sort of environment as the first book in the series, this time set at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, where Anna comes to appreciate the remains of the old Native culture (this book still calls them by an old name now considered outdated, though it wasn’t seen as such in 1995), while also having to deal with a strange sickness befalling park visitors. With a more urgent case and its desert southwest setting, this book feels like it calls forward to some of those New Mexican thrillers of latter day Preston & Child. Though it’d be tough to adapt for the USA/Crave series unless they decided to move settings to Colorado in a future season, this one is going to stand out for me among Barr’s books by the time I’ve caught up on her backlist.

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Review: A Superior Death

A Superior Death by Nevada Barr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Anna Pigeon’s second story trades in the Texan desert heat of Guadalupe Mountain National Park for the eerie chills of Isle Royale, and all the shipwrecks in Lake Superior surrounding the park. This story probably won’t be so easily adaptable for the USA/Crave TV series, since I can’t imagine a place as landlocked as Glacier would have too many shipwrecks to spare. But it’s a good shift in tone away from the first book, and shows the promise of how diverse the environments in this series will be as it covers park after park across the country.

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Review: The Devil by Name

The Devil by Name by Keith Rosson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fever House ended with the promise of a nearly uncontrollable apocalypse as the riots that inflamed Portland spread all around the world, and this book concludes the duology with the survivors struggling to piece together what's left, and potentially track down someone who may be able to fix the devil's damage. In order to that, they have to get the chosen one out of France - which makes me wonder how much of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Rosson had been watching while he wrote this book. Though this book is a bit repetitive of some of its predecessor's in-universe corporate and governmental record-keeping, it's still a fast paced dark thriller, and while there's definitely room to see where a third book would go, Rosson nevertheless did a great job sticking the landing in this book. Therefore, to Fever House, I now bid ave atque vale.

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Review: Fever House

Fever House by Keith Rosson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first of a duology set in Portland that helps make Keith Rosson the truest heir apparent to Stephen King's empire of Northeastern horror, with Rosson heading up the Northwestern outpost of King's style. It's like if The Stand was split into two books, with Randall Flagg largely hanging in the periphery, and a particular angel held under the corporate auspices of the US government, all while a whole bunch of regular people stuck in various seedy underbellies are forced to contend with a cursed artifact poised to wreck the world. For more details, see Book 2...

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Review: The Dorians

The Dorians by Nick Cutter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book caught my eye at Indigo on my trip to Vancouver, BC (the Granville store to be precise), and I put down a nice red C$50 note on this, plus a goosey little bag to store my souvenirs. And let me tell you, it was money well spent. A uniquely Canadian spin on certain Frankenstein tropes, with a touch of Jurassic Park and Cocoon in the DNA, it’s a fast paced and very creepy sci fi horror story about a group of oldsters pulled out of their MAID consultations (yes, in the event of a film adaptation it’ll have to be Canadian or else that part will really have to be changed) to be subject to the experimental whims of a teenage super genius. It’s perfect for spooky season, and only after I got my copy up north did I see that Beaverton library had it too. But I’ll be using the library to instead work my way through Cutter’s backlist…

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