Stars: 3.5 out of 5
Don’t get me wrong, I love Markhat and his friends, and the beginning of the story tugs at my heartstrings. I am a dog lover, and I work in animal rescue, so any mention of dog fighting makes me see red. So I was right there with Markhat when he went Hulk Smash on the b&%tards in that warehouse.
I really wanted more of that plotline, but unfortunately, it gets dropped almost immediately. Sure, we find Cornbread by the end of the book, but it’s almost a side note. We don’t even get to see the reunion with Saffie, which was a bit disappointing.
Instead, we get a story about yet another ancient would-be big bad crawling out of the nether and into Ranith. And while it was a fun ride, the stakes didn’t seem as personal as the previous books. Which is weird, considering the fate of the whole city was on the line.
There were also a lot of unanswered questions. Like, what was the point of taking over the drug trade in the city or beating up other members of Ranith’s underground, if the big bad was playing host to a literal Death god who was going to kill everyone anyway? That was the end goal, so why go into all the trouble with the rest?
Also, the whole jumping in and out of time, into the future and back, was a bit confusing. And it lowered the stakes in the end. Yes, Markhat made a sacrifice in the end to defeat the death god, but Markhat is also here and unhurt at the end of the book, so it cheapens what happened.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still a really good book, and I’m still loving this series. It was just a bit less enjoyable than the previous ones.