Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs

Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs
Buy Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Fantasy
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: The imbalance between werewolf and vampire continues in the life of car mechanic Mercy. With a novel baddy and a firm hand at guiding our heroine into a deep and twisting mystery, this fourth entry to the series is the best yet.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 304	Date: February 2009
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 978-1841496863
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You know how it is. After three books' worth of prevarication you just start to get touchy-feely with your next-door-neighbour Alpha male werewolf, when your mother turns up with a bone to pick about your last death-dealing and –defying acts being on the news. To top it all, your local vampire teleports himself into your living room having been nearly demolished by your worst enemy and needing a feed or three to keep existing. With all that going on, the college associate you've not seen for years rapping on your door asking for help with a haunted house comes as a welcome distraction.

For those who read through summer 2008, when the initial trilogy in this series was launched in the UK in monthly intervals, they will remember a cycle of books that had some flaws, but easily allowed us to forgive most as they gave us a strong female narrator – Mercy the car mechanic – and a distinctive urban fantasy world, where an author who certainly showed many instances of knowing what she was doing, offered a world firmly containing the dramatic, the odd, and a strong mix of her own vampire and werewolf mythologies.

To people who haven't picked up this series yet, there is nothing in this book as OTT as my concentration of chapter one might suggest. It isn't the easiest of ways in to the franchise, but beyond that there is a very strong story, where Mercy is forced to enter the worlds of the were and the undead one more time, with each side using her for good, ill or even worse. The story takes us to deeper depths than before, and throughout is a nicely measured exploration of modern fantasy, with a great look at a spunky heroine being tugged from one side to the other.

There will be many people eager to return to this series. They will remember Moon Called as fresh and more than welcome, while Blood Bound struggled to meet the required word count, and Iron Kissed seemed to assume we couldn't grasp the gist of all the fantasy elements first time round. This then is the strongest entry to the world of Mercy, and will be avidly put on many wants lists as a result.

For the new-comer I would knock a shade off my four and a half star rating, and hope they could get into the meaty high-action drama that this book offers successfully. An online primer should be offered by Orbit for us readers with a time budget wanting to play catch-up. But I shouldn't teach them to suck eggs, they know what they're doing – they offer welcome and individual fantasy stories such as this, and we at the Bookbag are grateful for our review copy. Roll on books five, six and seven.

For those who enjoy bouncing into fantasy series with a slight female emphasis at the fourth entry, we think you'll also like Windfall by Rachel Caine.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs at Amazon.com.

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