Thursday, 18 November 2010

Review: DEATHWISH

Deathwish by Rob Thurman
Book 4 of the Cal Leandros series

Genre: urban fantasy

About Deathwish by Rob Thurman:
How I felt the mental stirrings of a bloodthirsty heritage when I passed through the gray light wasn’t my favorite topic…. The Auphe nature wasn’t mine. I wouldn’t let it be. And if I said that to myself over and over and sprinkled around enough frigging fairy dust, maybe it would be true.

Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother, Niko, are barely getting by with their preternatural detective agency when the vampire Seamus hires them. He’s being followed, and he wants to know by whom. But the Leandros brothers have to do more than they had planned when Seamus turns up dead (or un-undead). Worse still is the return of Cal’s nightmarish family’ the Auphe.

The last time Cal faced them, the Auphe were almost wiped out. Now they want revenge. Cal knows that before the Auphe get to him, they will try to destroy everything and everyone he holds dear. Because for the Auphe, Cal’s pain is a pleasure.

And they’re feeling good.
Source: Info in the About Deathwish by Rob Thurman was taken from the author's website at http://robthurman.net/cal-leandros/deathwish/ on 14/09/2010.

Review:
Being book 4 in the series, the world building and character development has been done a long time ago. Although new characters were introduced, it is done in the same flare as the first book. Very good indeed. A 5 out of 5. So what else can I say about this book that I haven't said already in the previous books? The ending. The story ended with a bang and satisfying closure, but, some of the scenes there had some feasibility issues. It just tells you that this and that happened.  It didn't take the reader through the journey. The how did they get there was not properly explained. Consequently as a reader I had difficulty suspending disbelief. But because the story telling quality was good, I could overlook that issue for now and continue reading Rob Thurman.

Another thing about this book is that the narrative's point of view (POV) swaps between Nik and Cal from chapter to chapter. I had gotten so used to the narrative from Cal's POV that when Nik gets his turn I sometimes get confused and had to re-read the pages. The up side of this is that we get to hear Nik's POV which I have been wanting to know for a long time and this book gave me that satisfaction.
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4
World building = 5
Cover art = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Previous books in the Cal Leandros series:

3 comments:

  1. great review hon! I really like this series and in this one, I LOVED the back and forth between POVs, I think it was a great addition to the series =D

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  2. I love when books swap points of view. Great review dear :)

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  3. Great review, I really should try the first one...one day, oh sweet evil TBR pile

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