242. & 243. The Summoner & The Blood Detective
The Summoner by Gail Z Martin - for once, the multi-part series has been abandoned for a simple two-part novel, which makes a pleasant change for those of us who are obsessive completists...
Our hero is Tris, younger son of the king, who has inherited his grandmother's ability for magic although he doesn't yet know the full extent of his powers. What he does know is that his older half-brother, the heir, is a psychopath who has just murdered his way to the throne, forcing Tris to run for his life if he's not to be killed as well. Along with a handful of loyal men, Tris is forced to learn how to deal with his emerging mage powers as well as figure out just how to become a king in order to replace his brother on the throne.
In general, it's a pretty good book, if a little stereotypical in terms of handsome heroes and beautiful feisty heroines. Where it starts to fall down is once it goes beyond the initial premise (which is really intriguing) of a magic that allows someone to communicate with ghosts, including helping them to pass over to the next world rather than troubling ours. Rather than relying on these powers, the author suddenly decides to start throwing magic gizmos into the mix, with both a magic sword and a mystical amulet being heavily foreshadowed for part 2. However, my annoyance with that wasn't enough to stop me wanting to know how it all works out, which will happen in The Blood King.
The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell - in the world of crime writing, it takes a clever man to figure out a new angle, given the plethora of books featuring both police and private detectives of all kinds. However, The Blood Detective manages to do just that.
The eponymous protagonist is a genealogist, who becomes involved in helping to solve a series of murders when someone realises that the figures carved into one of the victims in fact refers to an entry in the birth register. When our hero, Nigel Barnes, figures out the link between this murder and another, it's a race against time for him to establish just who might be next.
It's an intriguing read, partly because of its novelty but also because the main characters (Barnes and the two police officers he works with) are well-drawn and sympathetic. I look forward to seeing if the author can recapture this in the sequel (Blood Atonement), though I'll have to wait since it's not due out till August.
Our hero is Tris, younger son of the king, who has inherited his grandmother's ability for magic although he doesn't yet know the full extent of his powers. What he does know is that his older half-brother, the heir, is a psychopath who has just murdered his way to the throne, forcing Tris to run for his life if he's not to be killed as well. Along with a handful of loyal men, Tris is forced to learn how to deal with his emerging mage powers as well as figure out just how to become a king in order to replace his brother on the throne.
In general, it's a pretty good book, if a little stereotypical in terms of handsome heroes and beautiful feisty heroines. Where it starts to fall down is once it goes beyond the initial premise (which is really intriguing) of a magic that allows someone to communicate with ghosts, including helping them to pass over to the next world rather than troubling ours. Rather than relying on these powers, the author suddenly decides to start throwing magic gizmos into the mix, with both a magic sword and a mystical amulet being heavily foreshadowed for part 2. However, my annoyance with that wasn't enough to stop me wanting to know how it all works out, which will happen in The Blood King.
The eponymous protagonist is a genealogist, who becomes involved in helping to solve a series of murders when someone realises that the figures carved into one of the victims in fact refers to an entry in the birth register. When our hero, Nigel Barnes, figures out the link between this murder and another, it's a race against time for him to establish just who might be next.
It's an intriguing read, partly because of its novelty but also because the main characters (Barnes and the two police officers he works with) are well-drawn and sympathetic. I look forward to seeing if the author can recapture this in the sequel (Blood Atonement), though I'll have to wait since it's not due out till August.
