Highway to Hell

Roadkill
by Rob Thurman
p. 2011

The fifth book in Rob Thurman’s yearly series, which began with Nightlife, has Niko and Cal Leandros and company hitting the road on the hunt for the latest supernatural threat, Suyolak, a demonic “anti-healer” with the capability of releasing a plague on the world. To do so requires the help of their own healer associate, Rafferty, and his cousin, Catcher. The pair of them, along with stalwart pal, Robin Goodfellow, chase Suyolak as he weaves a path of sickness and destruction across the country while concurrently dealing with the consequences of Cal’s casual trysts with werewolf paramour, Delilah, a Kin wolf whose association with Cal has earned her the distrust of her fellow wolves.

For the most part in Roadkill, the song remains the same: one-word compound title that is vague and encompassing, but relevant enough, bickering family, intense, frequent and bloody battle scenes interspersed with snappy dialogue and mountains of manly angst (or mangst, as it is conveniently referred to in some circles), big bad evil toying with the brothers until the inevitable ‘boss fight’ at the end... but Thurman changes up the style in ways that are noticeable enough to make the book feel somewhat unique.

For starters, in the last book, Deathwish, Thurman changed the formula by switching for the first time from a 100% Cal narration to a dual Cal and Niko narration. She continues that here, but Niko is subbed out for Catcher (of all characters), at a ratio of about three Cal chapters to every one Catcher chapter. I think this choice was a misstep overall. Deathwish provided the most insight into Niko as a character since the first book in the series, and taking away his narration relegates him back to the stagnant prop character he has sort of become. I mean, Niko’s awesome and all, but he borders on Gary Sue territory in his utter infallibility.

I also didn’t extremely care for the Catcher chapters because it just felt like more of the same stuff we were already getting from Cal. Thurman drew a really apt parallel between Niko and Cal and Rafferty and Catcher, the latter of whom are really like a soft version of the former, but it didn’t lead to any new revelations, at least not for the Leandros brothers. Catcher’s story (left open-ended post-Nightlife after the werewolf cousins disappeared for a few books to sort themselves out), is mildly interesting, predictably heartbreaking, and sort of wrapped up at the end. Rafferty is, for all intents and purposes, written off here as well, set aside for until Thurman needs a miracle in the future, no doubt. It’s clear Thurman is not done with him, but his story is concluded in a way that is satisfying for the time being.

Another change is the complete absence of Promise. After the sticky events of Deathwish, maybe Thurman thought the readers (and Niko) needed to take a bit of a break from Promise, but it’s kind of weird to me that she’s not even mentioned. Maybe that’s a result of Niko losing his narration, and if he were more abundantly represented, perhaps we would have caught a glimpse of Promise this go around, but at least we could have glimpsed Niko or Cal calling her for help once or twice. Geez, even Goodfellow’s boyfriend, Ishiah, was more prominently featured than Promise, thanks to the subplot of Goodfellow’s attempt to be monogamous. I was still okay with the lack of Promise overall though, because she can be something of a prop herself, and her absence in Roadkill gave Delilah a chance to shine and show what a complex character she is.

One thing that didn’t change, to my chagrin, is the Big Bad’s personality. Thurman can sketch out a damn good battle scene but her villains are all kind of the same. They are ridiculously powerful (too powerful, usually, for the brothers to beat alone, which you think they would have picked up on by now), spout some ridiculously evil, slimy dialogue, toy with our heroes like they’re playing with food, then inevitably go down in flames. They’re all just... sooo evil. And their intentions are all the same: death, chaos, victory, darkness rah rah rah. It took me five books to realize how tedious all the villains have been. I hope for a more complicated villain next time, one whose defeat leaves me with mixed feelings perhaps. Someone with motives we can understand, someone who has weaknesses. Hell, Suyolak is so powerful, there is literally not a chance that Cal and Niko could have defeated him on their own. They needed Rafferty or they would have been taken out in round one. Knowing that kind of makes the whole chase rather perplexing; what are Cal and Niko thinking chasing after something they have no idea how to beat? The Leandros brothers may fight hard, but they don’t always fight smart. Instead of exchanging banter and dwelling on brother-monster parallels, I would have welcomed seeing more interaction with Abelia-roo and the slimy Vayash clan who brought the problem into the world if it meant figuring out a way to defeat Suyolak without leaning so heavily on their deus ex machina healer.

I found some events in this book easy to aniticipate: I knew Catcher and Cal wouldn’t be cured of their respective ailments, I figured Delilah would only kind of betray Cal, I figured Goodfellow would be remain monogamous, and I just knew that having a healer literally on your side meant Cal would take more beatings in this book than any book previous (and how), but my biggest ‘totally called that’ moment was Cal’s inevitable downward spiral as he embraces his Auphe side. The only part I didn’t foresee is that the solution would come so quickly or so harshly. Cal’s mystical brain bomb should provide some interesting predicaments in future novels. Perhaps the predictability is a bad thing; perhaps it’s just a sign that, after a few books, I’ve really got these characters (and Thurman’s style) all figured out.