Picture credit: Jim Clark
Patricia Briggs: one of the new queens of everything spooky, romantic and dangerous. As a creator of characters that can live in your mind, my opinion is that she really rocks and has few equals. What I love about her main character, Mercy Thompson, is that she's not some kickboxing uber-powerful alpha female who will never admit to feeling weakness or fear. (Kind of like Buffy there. When Buffy thinks she's going to get her ass kicked, she runs! Maybe that's why I like Mercy too).
No, Mercy views reality with a cold, really almost clinical eye, and doesn't tell herself any fairytales about how things really are. (And maybe that makes her a mythical figure compared to most of us).
Okay, Mercy is kind of a kickboxer. (Or martial arts, at least). But she's not invulnerable, and she doesn't try to kid herself or anyone else otherwise. I just like people who are honest, and I don't think I'm alone.
Bone Crossed is the fourth in this series of supernatural thrillers, and, while not the best, is a huge improvement on the sadly disappointing third in the series, Iron Kissed. (My heart started sinking while reading Iron Kissed and wound up in the bottom of the Mariana Trench by the time I'd finished).
The main problem with Bone Crossed is that it is over-plotted. It's not just a case of the plotlines having sub-plotlines. The sub-plotlines have sub-plotlines, and i'm not too sure that you can't drill down further than that, even. I will put my hand up and say I got a little confused.
But let's concentrate on the upsides. The characterisation is still, as always with Briggs, top-notch. Adam, especially, is the most coolly vulnerable, doggedly determined to win the heroine, alpha male ever. And the little boy haunted by ghosts – but more so, by his non-biological father's status – is a new and genius character.
Plus, lets' face it, over-plotting is a preferable flaw when compared with no plotting at all. Did anyone say Iron Kissed? A novel where the denouement comes from the heroine, er, randomly and freely going to the bad guy's house and getting assaulted. No detecting, no clues (beyond absolute obviousness and blatant flat out stating of the case), no plot twists. Um, bad things happen. Heroine goes to bad guy's place and, wow, he's a bad guy. Let's wrap it up there.
Okay, Briggs had to get it to the point where there was some reason Mercy would finally give in to fleshly lusts and let Adam have his wolfy way, but did it really need to take up the whole book?
Deep breath. Oh, I'm reviewing Bone Crossed, not the third one, right! Forgot myself there... Anyhow, we get Mercy kicking some ass, a few steps closer to resolution with her and Adam, a slew of pretty convincing and startlingly cynical character portraits and a vastly superior fourth episode in the series. (Unless we look at Volumes I and II, both better plotted and more considered artistically). I'm not complaining. From this reviewer, more Mercy Thompson is always good Mercy Thompson. Just, enough of the Rubik plotting, 'kay?
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