No More Sleep For Me

The Harvest Man, by Alex Grecian. Book four of the Murder Squad series.

I made up the name of the series. I guess it would more properly be The Yard series, after book one, but that sounded odd in my head. Anyway…

This series follows the adventures of Inspector Walter Day, a member of the Murder Squad of London’s police force. Set just after the conclusion of Jack The Ripper’s killing spree, public faith in the police is, naturally, fairly low… and then comes book one, The Yard. Suffice to say, it got me thoroughly hooked on the series.

Four books on, and Inspector Day is doing fairly well. The case this time is that of the Harvest Man, a serial killer the likes of whom Murder Squad has not encountered before.

The series keeps up its quality of writing for this book, with scenes from the Harvest Man’s perspective occurring every now and then giving a glimpse into his thought process. It’s kind of terrifying actually – and I imagine it would be more-so if the reader happened to fit the profile of his victims.

This book is extremely character focused. All the protagonists get a huge amount of character development – built on events of the previous books – and it’s great to see. Even some minor recurring characters get a bunch.

And then there’s the ending. You may recall that I’ve raged about cliffhanger endings in the past. Well, this has to be the best executed of them that I’ve read in a long time. If I go into much detail I’ll likely spoil both this book and the last couple, but suffice to say that it’s both completely unexpected, entirely consistent with the tone and characters involved, and the perfect place to end the book. And now I really want to read the next one…

Overall, I have to thoroughly recommend this series – but don’t read this one first. It builds heavily on events from the rest of the series. Start with book one, The Yard. It might be possible to begin with The Black Country or The Devil’s workshop too, though you’ll miss out on some establishing character moments for the various protagonists.

Next up, a prequel to another of my favourite series. Should be fun!

Not Sure That’s A Word…

Dark Debt, by Chloe Neill. Book eleven of the Chicagoland Vampires series.

Why did I read this? Because sometimes you just have to read a trashy romance novel, and they’re more bearable if characters have multiple opportunities to be dismembered. That’s my quota for the year, I think.

Anyway, the series follows Merit, a vampire, and member of a “House” of vampires (one of three in Chicago). In this book, a mysterious figure from another character’s past shows up and causes havoc! Excitement! Drama! Kissing! Fight scenes! The Mob! Everything a good romance needs! In all honesty, the plot’s not that deep, but I’ll stick to my no-spoilers rule and say only that it could have gone in an interesting direction, if there weren’t two (seemingly unconnected) parallel main plots.

Anyway, as you probably know I’m quite invested in the various systems of magic and the supernatural in books. I like them to make sense (or specifically not make sense). Now, this series has magic, fairies, werewolves, and so on in addition to vampires, but I’ll leave them be since they’re not really expanded upon. Vampires, on the other hand…

Super-speed, super-strength, super-senses, mind-control, drink blood, disintegrate in sunlight, rapid healing, vulnerable to wooden stakes. You know, the usual. Vampires are displayed with varying levels of each power. Except Merit, obviously. As the main character she’s special.

However. A vampire chasing a human through the streets fails to gain any ground. Super strength isn’t enough to do more than barely overpower human antagonists. Mind control can apparently just be ignored (except when it can’t). Blood must be drunk, but comes in a can, and can be supplemented with normal food and drink. The only impact of sunlight is to invert the times that the story occurs at. One character has been staked during the series. Sigh. I guess this is what happens when you have a setting where vampires are pretty common, rather than rate and terrifying creatures.

Maybe the series seems worse when I think back on it, but I’m not sure. Also the title makes no sense. Arg!

Overall, I can’t recommend this series. If you want strong characters and an interesting story set in the modern day USA, with vampires, werewolves, and the like, you should read something else. The Dresden files, for example (assuming you’re not too interested in the romance aspect).

Next up, something completely different. And less fantasy.