Review: TRICK OF THE LIGHT by ROB THURMAN

Trick of the Light by Rob Thurman

Buy It Now: via Amazon.com

Description: There are demons in the world. Monsters. Creatures that would steal your soul. You might hide under your covers at night and pretend all’s right with the world, but you know. Even if you don’t want to admit it. Las Vegas bar owner Trixa Iktomi deals in information. And in a city where unholy creatures roam the neon night, information can mean life or death. Not that she has anything personal against demons. They can be sexy as hell, and they’re great for getting the latest gossip. But they also steal human souls and thrive on chaos. So occasionally Trixa and her friends have to teach them some manners. When Trixa learns of a powerful artifact known as the Light of Life, she knows she’s hit the jackpot. Both sides-angel and demon-would give anything for it. But first she had to find it. And as Heaven and Hell ready for an apocalyptic throwdown, Trixa must decide where her true loyalty lies-and what she’s ready to fight for. Because in her world, if you line up on the wrong side, you pay with more than your life… (from Rob Thurman’s Official Site)

Stacy B’s Review:

Saying “you’re never going to guess the end” only makes most folks read that much closer, sure they WILL guess it. I went halfsies; having been told the end would surprise me, I looked for little clues, but then got so caught up in the story I still managed to be a bit surprised. It was a good mixture.

Rob Thurman definitely has to qualify as one of the mothers of this fledgling genre, “urban fantasy”, and I’d read several of her previous works – predominantly the Cal Leandros series. With that in mind, I knew to expect a bit of strange, and overall a feeling of seedy underbelly mixed in with disgusting demonfolk and main characters with questionable morality but their hearts in the right place. I got exactly that in the first Trickster novel. Set in modern-day Las Vegas, we meet Trixa and her gang of merry men – a Native American bartender named Leo and her two adopted young men, Zeke & Griffin. The two young men have their own slew of issues which are touched on in bits and pieces, unraveling a story that makes them necessary partners in both life and demon-slaying.

We start with one demon in particular, Solomon (whom I can’t help but picture as an Italian-mobster type from New Jersey – I can almost smell his cologne from here), with whom Trixa has a strange relationship: he’s a demon, and she kills demons. But instead of a+b=c, Trixa trades banter and occasionally burns down his businesses and waits for him to get angry and then the banter-burn-wait-anger cycle starts all over again. All while this is going on, Trixa is slaying other demons, running her bar, searching for an ancient artifact and hunting for someone. This someone is responsible for the death of her brother, whom she remembers very fondly. It seems the book is going all of nowhere, just stirring around in a cauldron as she seeks out a classic object to protect the innocent from demons or give demons extreme power – a plot with some familiarity. But Thurman has a goal in mind, and when things start to fall into place, suddenly you’re hooked. Her writing style doesn’t hurt either – one finds that her almost-harsh (and definitely non-fluffy) approach to characterization is actually quite fulfilling and even a bit refreshing. Maybe it’s the genre too, because Patricia Briggs and C.E. Murphy also employ this in some of their works.

The book starts slow, and the characters are hard to get to know, but it is all-over rewarding once you do. And of course, the best thing about it is the re-read once the true nature of the characters is exposed. I have to say that knowing something fishy is going on didn’t impede my wholehearted enjoyment of certain characters, and perhaps assisted in blinding me to the big reveal. I’m looking forward to the further adventures of Trixa, Leo, Zeke & Griffin; though knowing what I now know, I’m completely without ideas as to where they go from here – it’s fantastic.