Beanbag Love

Cal and Niko are back for another dangerous mission. This time their old Rom nemesis, Abelia-Roo, contacts them to fix an apocalyptic screw-up that could mean the end of the world. Good times.

Along for the ride is everyone's favorite trickster, Robin Goodfellow, who's a bit out of sorts, experimenting with a concept that has been beyond his slightest consideration for centuries. Delilah, as well, bringing some extra danger and skin-tight white leathers along for the ride. Poor Cal.

The villain is a nasty old thing who makes everybody sick. Well, dead is more the term. And within seconds. He's an 'anti-healer', which means they need the best healer they can possibly get in order to balance the scales. Enter our old friend Rafferty and his beloved cousin Catcher to the eclectic mix. It's nice to see them again, but they haven't been having fun since they disappeared some two and a half years before. They add more than their share of poignancy to the story.

I'm giving this four stars, but it's more like 3.75. I often find road trip stories tedious, although some are pulled off well. This one definitely bogs down, but the climax, as with all of Thurman's work, is well worth the trip.

We're left with some questions and a few, slightly unsatisfying answers, but overall it's a pretty fun book. I think Thurman's actual word-smithing is improving, but the story had a redundancy the others didn't. And some of the characters' patterns of behavior are getting just a tiny bit stale.

Still, if you're a Cal and Niko Leandros fan, you'll be wanting to read this installment sooner rather than later. And, if you aren't, you probably haven't read the books yet and you need to get on that task.