Book #87

Blood Bound
by Patricia Briggs

Here comes the shortest review of the year, since this is a re-read of a book I read only last year.

I like the Mercy Thompson books, though I remember liking the first one better than this; Briggs does a wonderful job of world-building here, particularly with the society of the werewolves, and Mercy's a great character -- the underhanded sneaky one in a world of serious power-brokers. I also like that she's a mechanic who lives in a single-wide, and that she has apparently no ability to deal with romance. But in this book, it focuses on the vampires, and in particular on a demon-possessed vampire, and the vampires don't work as well. It's like Briggs wanted to make them evil, but she couldn't help but write them sympathetically; almost as if she chose people she liked as the mental models for some of the vampires. So while the vamps are certainly intimidating and alien, particularly the bad guy, Littleton, they're also pretty okay folks. Stefan painted his van like the Scooby Doo Mystery Wagon. Wulfe, the Wizard, is freaky and all, but he turns out to be a good guy. As nasty as the Mistress can be -- and was, in the first book -- she takes Mercy's side in this one, and comes off as much more human and likable. The whole seethe (and I like "kiss" better) are not the blood-soaked villains they are portrayed as, which is odd since Briggs is the one who portrayed them as the consummate evil.

But I like the chair of truth, and the way Mercy takes advantage of the vampire's weakness to take these guys out, and Littleton, at least, was extremely scary -- I love the part when he's hiding under the floorboards, and Mercy shoots him, and he pushes the bloody bullets back through the holes. That's a great image. And to be sure, part of the problem I had with this book was that I've been spoiled, a bit, in reading the Anita Blake books, which have absolutely the best depiction of vampires that I've ever read, so these end up paling in comparison despite having their own strengths. It was still a good book, and I enjoyed it.