Doubletake

Doubletake
by Rob Thurman
p. 2012

Family reunions are the name of the game in Rob Thurman’s 2012 contribution to the Cal Leandros mythology, as each of the three main characters deal with blasts from the past intent on upsetting their already tumultuous lives. A chain of events brings these shady relatives into Cal and Niko’s orbit and leads the brothers to question whether they can trust someone new (hint: no.) while it leads me to question whether Thurman is capable of something new. (hint: yeahhhhhno.) 

It’s Goodfellow’s kin that sets off the series of reunions as every puck in existence gathers in New York City for ‘The Panic,’ their thousand-year reunion meant to tally their number and participate in a lottery to decide who must reproduce to keep the population going for another thousand years. Robin has opted to hire Cal and Niko as bouncers to keep the situation under control and the results are predictably awkward but undeniably hilarious. It’s important to remember that all the pucks look nearly identical, so even though ‘their’ puck is the only non-participant, due to his ongoing experimentation with monogamy, it’s impossible to escape the sight of Robin fornicating with everything in sight, including variations of himself. Cal and Niko’s front row seats to the orgy of the century were so hilariously outrageous that for a few chapters I almost wondered if perhaps Thurman was attempting to do a humorous filler novel for once. It would have been the perfect place for it—coming directly after Cal’s emotional stint with amnesia, which ended with him wiping out the remnants of his monster-reject family, the last vestiges of his Auphe family tree.

Or so he thought. Naturally, there was one ‘brother’ that Cal missed, and he becomes the central antagonist of Doubletake, and definitely future installments too, considering he’s still kicking it above ground by novel’s end. This monstrosity was one of the last failed experiments of the Auphe, incapable of facilitating their evil plan but still capable of creating gates and very much in possession of the Auphe’s twisted sensibilities. Once he escaped from his captive adolescence, Cal’s twisted ‘brother’ educated himself, taught himself to fight, adopted the name Grimm and relegated himself to the fringes, waiting for his chance at revenge against his race. When Cal robs him of this chance, Grimm switches his sights to Cal, and reveals himself for the first time in Doubletake with a new plan for creating his own destructive race—and he wants Cal’s help to get things started.

Disappointingly, it’s more of the same with Grimm—the slimy, all-powerful villain who talks too much and is evil for evil’s sake. This of course means lots of diabolical monologuing and heavy angst. It also means another villain whose intentions are predictable and not at all relatable. It also means, I am cheated out of my potentially humorous filler novel, but that rude awakening preceded Grimm’s entrance in the form of Niko’s shady relative—his erstwhile father, Kalakos, a gypsy bounty hunter of sorts who is in town hunting down the Vayash Clan’s latest escaped responsibility, Janus. Janus is a monster made of metal and fire and it is intent on tracking down and killing every member of the Vayash Clan (even, according to Kalakos, exiled members like Cal and Niko who want nothing to do with the clan). The brothers reject Niko’s father’s attempt to reach out, but are forced to rely on him when Cal is gravely wounded by Janus.

Kalakos was definitely the thread I was most interested in, of the three family reunions. Where Cal’s interactions with Grimm brought nothing new to the table and Goodfellow’s kin brought only laughs, it is Niko’s reaction to his father that brings the most questions. Cal is loyal to a fault; we know he trusts no one and will choose any avenue that most thoroughly protects his brother, so he leaves the decision to Niko on whether or not Kalakos should be allowed in the picture. As Niko’s estranged father accompanies the boys on their two-way Janus hunt, the latter are forced to ask themselves whether they can forgive Kalakos after abandoning them all their lives.

I’ll admit, I wondered if it could work out. Cal and Niko had accepted others into their circle before. Promise and Rafferty are always on the guest list and of course one doesn’t get more ‘inner circle’ than Goodfellow, who the brothers trust implicitly. I allowed myself to hope that perhaps Kalakos could earn forgiveness and be another capable character for the brothers to rely on, maybe a rogue who pops his head in every now and then to offer support...

... Oh, how foolish that was.

Sure enough, Kalakos not only proves what Cal and Niko knew all along—that he is not to be trusted—but he also completely loses the cool, rational demeanor he’d held for the entire book and spontaneously starts monologuing about how eeeeevil he is. It’s almost like Thurman’s villains cannot help themselves. They just have to prove their evil worth by not shutting the fuck up.

It’s disappointing because there are dozens of ways this could have gone and I imagined most of them. Kalakos could have been on the level and become a new ally, he could have have been on the level and died tragically, the brothers could have not trusted him then regretted it when he turned out to be legit, or they could have allowed themselves to forgive only to be let down. Literally any option that allows some combination of these characters to grow emotionally would have been more interesting than what we got. But instead, Kalakos was a bastard all along, surprising precisely nobody. But we’re going to pretend like nobody saw it coming so he can get his villain on in the final act. Yawn.

I’m being a little hard on Doubletake. I liked it like I liked any of the other books in this series, I’m just hoping for a new take on things soon, a promise of emotional growth, and maybe some new characters for the inner circle. If anything, Doubletake actually took away one of the inner circle in the only surprising twist in the book, which I have avoided mentioning until now because it seems about as relevant in this review as it does in the actual book. What I’m referring to is the revelation that George—Cal’s old psychic paramour—the good-hearted girl next door who exiled herself when Cal refused to let her in—the girl whom we haven’t heard from or spoken to in at least 4 books—was brutally murdered by Grimm ‘off screen,’ so to speak. The truth isn’t revealed to our intrepid heroes this time around, making its inclusion here seem kind of random, but in a good way, like a bullet that has been fired but has not yet found its mark. When that bullet hits, I expect all hell to break loose. I only hope that we get proper chance to say goodbye to Georgie when that happens, because she deserves better than the ending she apparently got.