Customer Reviews

Roadkill (Cal Leandros, Book 5)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're a fan of sparkly vampires or damsels in distress, then pass right on by this product--- you'll find no bodice-ripping in the Cal Leandros series unless it's from a sexy-as-hell Asian werewolf ripping off her own clothes in preparation to dole out some gratuitous violence. Rob Thurman takes no prisoners with her brash, unapologetic writing style. While many fans (and critics) draw parallels between this book series and the cult show "Supernatural", the similarities end with the summation "Two brothers, one with evil genetics, battle the forces of darkness and deliver sassy one-liners while doing it". From that point on, Rob makes the concept her own.

While most writers in this genre are male (the females tend to stray more into paranormal romance territory), Rob puts on her ass-kicking boots on the first page and never takes them off. You won't find frills, sentimental monologues, or cheesy admissions of love. What you WILL find are loving descriptions of Desert Eagles and assault knives, hilarious quips and sarcastic one-liners, and a great ensemble cast. Rob takes myths that have been turned into parodies and clichés in the genre and flips them on their heads; she draws from lesser-known mythologies and throws random monsters into the mix, and you will find zombies whose flesh melts off their skin when they attack, mummified cats who have a higher kill count than a gamer playing "Halo", and pucks that look like walking Trojan advertisements. You'll find a fully-human brother who can strangle someone to death with a tube sock, and a half-evil brother who can open portals to Hell at the mere thought. You'll also encounter kamikaze werewolves, pacifist werewolves, and an evil gypsy woman.

Now pack as many of them into a vintage El Camino as you can, and put them on the trail of a healer who plans to unleash a plague upon all of humanity. Throw in a bag of Cheetos and you have "Roadkill", the latest in the badass Cal Leandros series.

Scenes will make you laugh out loud, scenes will make you tear up a little bit. But most importantly, every single page will have you eagerly turning to the next. Take this ride that Rob Thurman's offering up; you won't regret it.

As book 5 of a series, I'm sure anyone who has followed Cal and Nik this far will buy and enjoy this book as well. With that said though, I didn't like Roadkill nearly as much as the others. In the prior books, I felt that Cal and Nik's strong personalities were well balanced with the other characters. In this one, however, that balance felt off. Two of the visiting characters felt like Cal & Nik knock-offs and Goodfellow was completely off his game. The dialog ended up consisting of far too much bickering for my taste.

I'll happily pick up book 6 when it comes out. I just may end up skipping this one if I re-read the series down the road.

Hmmm...Thurman definitely ended this with a very dark edge. And that is saying something considering the villains Cal and Niko have faced, including their own issues. The novel begins more or less like usual: the guys take a case with a near-indestructible enemy, and learn that the Kin know about Cal and Delilah. Promise skips this mission, but since the enemy is an anti-healer, they need a healer to help combat him. I was glad to see the werewolf cousins, Rafferty and Catcher, return. Their story has been a loose thread since the beginning. I wanted to know why Catcher is stuck as a wolf, and why Rafferty feels responsible - and we do. And it's pretty damn clever to boot.

In Deathwish (Cal Leandros, Book 4), Thurman shook up the format by having Niko alternate with Cal as narrator. She does so again here, only this time Catcher alternates with Cal to tell the tale. I'm split over this. On the one hand, I like seeing Cal's actions through others' eyes. Especially since Catcher doesn't love Cal like Niko does, so he's more objective. And able to see the slow changes in Cal that Niko can't or won't see as the plot moves along. On the other hand, this shifted the dynamic of the story making this as much about Catcher and Rafferty as about Cal. With the Auphe gone, readers might've expected Cal and Niko to "go forth and be supernatural protectors of the realm." Instead, Thurman throws a curveball by introducing a very dark thread for Cal when unexpected side-effects to gating start to manifest. I'm not sure I like this theme, since I can't see how it can be resolved with my favorite anti-hero still intact. Thankfully, I have faith in the author! It does add a new dimension to the brothers relationship as we see just how far Niko will go to protect his brother, even from himself.

In direct contrast to the dark storyline, Thurman keeps the black humor rolling. Cal's famous sarcasm is as sharp as ever, and his thoughts about sex, now that he's getting some, are frequent and hilarious. Niko wastes no time cuffing him on the back of the head when he requires it either. Goodfellow, while not adding anything to the plot or story (which was somewhat disappointing), does add laughs as he wrestles with, oh the horror, monogamy! The ending was an action-packed, exciting battle where all plot threads converge to one showdown.

Overall, though the pacing of the book wasn't as tight as the previous books (mainly because they spent so much time chasing the enemy across country so we could have therapy time), the plot was well done, the ending spectacular and the characters true to form. I can't wait for the next book.

I was happy to see that Rob Thurman was continuing with the Cal Leandros series, having thought that the fourth book wrapped up things and that she was moving on with the Trickster series. There's a bit of a new direction here, Cal and Niko have resolved some 'family' issues, but still have their business dealing with monsters to attend to and the responsibilities of the relationships they've built up over the last few years.

The greatest strength of this series has been those relationships - of Cal and Niko specifically, but also of the bond they form with Robin and various friends, almost against their will. The way that once they let someone in close they'll be there for each other to the end, the wonderful banter, the give and take. It's great to sit back and read the scenes between Cal and Robin as they snipe away at each other, the affection and one upmanship, the way Cal always looks up to Niko and how Niko always looks out for Cal but never looks down on him. Whether they're lounging around or fighting, the dialogue is usually fun and the scenes interesting and easy to follow. The mythology of the world is interesting as well and among the more unique out there.

The thought of a healer who destroys instead of making things better is a nice take on things, and it was good to see the Kin character Delilah along for the ride. I think of her as the strongest female character in the series, doing what she has to do to get what she wants in a sense of simplicity. It's nice to see characters like her and Rafferty who are not evil, just true to their natures, who can be grumpy or out for themselves and not the bad guys.

There's more of an exploration of Cal's Auphe self in here, which in one sense is a progression for the series. For all of Cal's insistence that he's a monster, it's good to see more of that side of him emerge. One of my main complaints about the book is the treatment of his ability to gate - not to give too much away, but at times it seems that this ability comes and goes based on plot needs. Another complaint is too many characters seemed obsessed with sex in this volume. I expect that from Robin, but at point I was hoping that the road trip would stop by Las Vegas for a few hours so the boys could see to their needs being met just to stop reading about all the blue ball syndrome.

It would also have been nice to have a Niko point of view chapter, considering the changes happening to Cal in this volume. Hopefully we'll get that in the next one. Minor complaints aside, I think Roadkill is one of the stronger books in the series and sets things up for some interesting plotlines in the future. I look forward to Cal's evolution in the future, how things are going to be for him and Delilah as well as him and Niko, and the impact to Robin's love life.

I loved the first and second books in this serious. The third and fourth ones were pretty okay. But this one was rather dissapointing. Like another reviewer said, far too much of the dialogue was just bitching. The humor was off the mark to me. And the whole book just felt rather lacking. Over and over again it was like the author was introducing the characters; I kept waiting for the book to actually take off and stop rehashing things that had already been introduced. Way too much unnecessary description, and the book repeated itself a lot. It got frustrating. Yes, we get Delilah is a killer and her relationship with Cal is a rocky one. It's an interesting relationship, but stop telling us that over and over. I love the characters, and I did still enjoy them in the book, but just not as much as the others. I'm not sure I would buy Cal Book 6, because this one has been just too frustrating.

I recently discovered Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series, so I've read all five books in the last couple of months. When I got Roadkill, I started reading immediately, but unlike the other books, I put it down, once for two days, before I picked it back up and finished it last night. I think it was because all the books have a sameness to the plot. Cal does something stupid, Niko saves him, hits him up side the head, then Cal worries about losing his humanity.

But having given that caveat and the reason my review is four stars instead of five, I can give an enthusiastic endorsement of the book and the series. I had wondered what Thurman would do in book five since all the Auphe, the main bad guys for the first four books, were now gone. She came up with an interesting plot--what exactly is Cal and what is he becoming. At the end of the book, she has sort of written herself into a corner with this idea, but I have confidence that she can pull it out.

The book also adds chapter point-of-views from Catcher, the healer's brother stuck in his wolf form, and he made an interesting addition to the story. There is plenty of action, and I thought the finale was a little dishonest with the bad guy being defeated in a way we had been told was impossible, but it was still in the realm of possibility.

The ending is a sad one for two of the characters, but it was also logical and honest--no pulling magical solutions out of the hat. Read this series, maybe just not in a two month span like I did.

SYNOPSIS:
Cal and Niko Leandros are hired by Abelia-Roo to recover something which has been stolen from her Rom clan. Oh, and by the way, it is a coffin which contains The Plague of the World and, it seems, the seals are not completely holding The Plague inside any more. If Cal, Niko, and Robin can't find the person who stole the coffin before the seals break down completely, there will be death on a monumental scale.

OPINION:
I was very glad to see that author Rob Thurman has presented this story from the perspective of Cal, the half human/half Auphe (demon)young man who has now reached the age when he should be considered an adult. But only if his brother Niko will let go long enough for Cal to make some mistakes and learn from them. Ahh, but that's a problem, because when Cal makes a mistake, people - or things - die. The first portion of this book had some seriously laugh out loud moments. I was going to use a quote to illustrate that, but there were so many I decided to just let you read the book for yourself and enjoy them as you come to them. Then slowly this road trip from hell turns in a dark and intense direction. In a previous book Cal and Niko had confronted the Auphe and killed them all. Really? No, not all. But the revelation of that little mystery is part of why this is such a wonderfully written book. By the end of the story I found myself sniffing and tearing up and needing a tissue. As would be expected when dealing with The Plague of the World, there are some seriously dangerous situations our band of happy warriors find themselves involved in. When you add Delilah, Cal's werewolf girlfriend into the mix and then toss in two more characters from previous novels, well, I never knew exactly where we were going next. This author was able to handle a pet peeve of mine in wonderful fashion. She inserted information regarding the back story of the characters and from her other books in the series without making my eyes roll back in my head from sheer boredom. Quite an accomplishment and a sign to me of great writing skill.

RECOMMENDATION:
This entire series of books is very highly recommended by me. This particular novel had me fully engaged from the very first page. It is very dark and intense by the time the final confrontation happens, but with this genre that is to be expected. The episode in the farmhouse was quite disturbing, but then so much of urban fantasy can be disturbing on many levels. I sat down and started reading the book and I would have willingly read straight through to the conclusion if my eyes had not demanded rest. I really liked the book being presented from Cal's point of view. I'm hoping that the two characters in the epilogue are not gone from the series forever. I really like both of them and don't want to say goodbye.

After reading the 4 books in the Cal Leandros series and Trick of the Light, you'd think I wouldn't be surprised that I loved this one. Rob Thurman is amazing at what she does. She takes characters that we've come to adore and change them up enough that they stay interesting yet retain the qualities that we fell in love with. The plot was great and I couldn't put the book down. Buy it! Read it!

I laughed so hard I almost cried during the first third of this book and then needed to grab the Kleenex because I was so touched by the end. Like all the other books in this series, the author has the perfect blend of outrageously funny and keep-your-feet-off-the-floor scary. All of the characters, including my favorite mummified cat, are so real--good points, bad points, and all the points in between. I feel like I would recognize Cal, Niko, and Robin if I saw them walking down the street. (For all I know, maybe they might have passed through my city on the way to their final confrontation.) The only reason I didn't give the book 5 stars was because I want to read about the return trip. Maybe the next book in this series.

In this fine offering, book #5 in the Cal Leandros series, author Rob Thurman once more experiments with a first-person POV -- this time, it's Cal and Catcher.
Catcher WHO?
Remember Rafferty, a werewolf healer that saved Cal's life in "Nightlife"? Yup. That's the guy. And Catcher is Rafferty's cousin who's permanently stuck in wolf form.
In "Roadkill", Cal, Niko and Goodfellow hit the road to go after the "Plague of the World", a gypsy anti-healer named Suyolak. Rafferty is the only one able to possibly stop Suyolak from unleashing a Black-Death remake, Ebola, killer flu and you-name-it-as-long-as-it's-gross-and-lethal upon the unsuspecting population. Raff also hopes to cure his cousin Catcher, before Catcher loses his human half completely. Delilah joins the gang on her bike, but this time it looks as though she's got something extra to give Cal, and we ain't talking hot sex...more like a knife or a deadly case of claws. The Kin discovered the truth about Cal and her, and demand that she kill Cal to save her honor. Will she do it? Seems like the only question is "when". And as if that's not enough mayhem, Cal's gating makes him bond with his inner Auphe in a scary, scary way.
Once more, a 5-star book.
I can't wait to read "Blackout"...