Killing Rocks (Bloodhound Files book 3) by DD Barant

 

Killing Rocks came out last year, and once I began reading it I realized I had already read it, but I couldn't remember what happened until I read it. So, I suppose it's a good thing I read it again. I have no idea why I didn't review it when I originally read it, either. It's a mystery.

The premise of this series is intriguing, but I worry that as we begin exploring alternate universes, realities happening on a different timeline, swords that can go back and forth in time, and multiple instances of the same person from different realities, that at some point the books will get too bogged down in complications.

Here's the blurb:

FBI profiler Jace Valchek's ticket home from the twisted parallel universe where she's been called to duty hinges on the capture of serial killer Aristotle Stoker--and an alliance with a sorcerer known as Asher. The problem: Asher has joined forces with some of the most dangerous creatures Jace has ever encountered. The solution: There is none, without Asher's help... Jace's goal seems simple enough--to get her man, like always. But just hours after she arrives in Vegas, she's abducted...and she isn't even sure who the real enemy is. Now Jace has to wonder if she's the predator or the prey in a very dangerous game that could change not only her fate, but the world's...Meanwhile, a serial killer is still on the loose. And time has already run out...

As for the writing elements:

• The plot is twisted and intriguing, though it's the characters that lead the story, I think.
• Pacing had some issues but was mostly fine.
• Prose and dialogue were fine. 
• Character development is gradually getting there, the problem is that so many people apparently don't appear to be as they are. Too many characters are too much of a mystery, so there is no way to know who to trust. And in this book, those we are sure she can trust, end up not being trustworthy.
• World-building continues to be detailed and imaginative and pure genius.

I'm going to give Killing Rocks a 9 of 10, though I started out thinking it should be an 8 of 10. In the end, the characters, the dialogue, the world building, the metaphysics, and the entertainment factor make it a 9.  I will keep the series at an 8 of 10 for now. I'm about to delve into the fourth book, so we'll see how the series rating looks when I've finished it.  Considering that the titles would have us believing that Jace will be turned into a Pire in book four, and then in book five she somehow becomes becomes human again, I have serious concerns that the author may be using the whole time travel thing as too much of a plotting mechanism, and that will most likely send my ratings downhill. I hope I'm wrong about what those titles are telling us.

• Book Rating: Killing Rocks: 9 of 10
• Series Rating:  8 of 10

1. Dying Bites
2. Death Blows
3. Killing Rocks
4. Better Off Undead
5. Back from the Undead


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