Blackout (Cal Leandros, Book 6) by Rob Thurman

 

Blackout is the 6th book in the Cal Leandros series, and one that fixes a problem I wasn't sure the author was going to be able to fix.

Rob Thurman created a monster who happens to also be sort of human, but the monster bits have been winning out over the human bits, and I wasn't sure how Ms. Thurman was going to deal with that long term. I wasn't happy with where the series looked to be headed. Blackout goes a long ways towards reorienting things. It's not a "fix", but it certainly gives Cal some perspective. The blurb doesn't tell us much, but here it is:

I was alone, and I was lost. I didn’t know where I was; I didn’t know who I was. It doesn’t get more lost than that. Knowing what I knew and not knowing anything else at all, why would I want to be in the darkness where monsters hide?

Because killers hide there, too…
_____
Half-human Cal Leandros has always walked a bloody line between keeping his mortal soul free and clear (sort of) and unleashing the horror of his otherworldly heritage. The one thing that’s always saved him is the memory of his brother, Niko, his friends, and those he loves.

Until now.

Cal wakes up on a beach littered with the recently slaughtered remains of a variety of hideous creatures that were obviously looking for trouble. The fact that he was the one doing the slaughtering doesn’t bother him. The fact that he feels like a natural-born killer doesn’t either. What bothers him is that Cal doesn’t remember Cal anymore…
 
And he’s not sure he cares.

So we know Cal is going to have amnesia. I wasn't thrilled about that, to be honest. But it works. It's a good plot, and it goes a long ways towards fixing the direction the series had been going.

That's not to say there aren't any issues. Towards the end there are major pacing issues. Big time. When you can easily put a book down at 75% of the way through and go to sleep an hour earlier than you'd planned, the pacing is off.

As for the writing elements:

• The plot was a good one, and was a nice change of pace for the series.
• Pacing had issues, as I've already mentioned.
• Prose was good, dialogue was fantastic.
• Character development took some interesting twists in Blackout, but that's okay. It was well done.
• World-building continues to be nicely done in this series.

The snark in this series is top notch, and Cal's amnesia didn't make him lose his general all around smart-assed-ness.

The series has been at an 8 of 10 in the past, and I'll be keeping it there. I'm going to give Blackout a 9 of 10. It was a good plot and a nice story but the pacing issues took away some of the enjoyment factor.

• Book Rating: Blackout: 9 of 10
• Series Rating: 8 of 10

The Books in the Cal Leandros series are:

1. Nightlife

2. Moonshine

3. Madhouse

4. Deathwish

5. Roadkill

6. Blackout