Customer Reviews

Thunderbird Falls (The Walker Papers)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved Murphy's first book, Urban Shaman. Thunderbird falls seems to fall flat. In the second installment, Joanne Walker, the main character trips over a body, literally. She then sets out to investigate the "murder" when there are to signs that there was a murder. We meet a witch coven who wants Joanne to join and lend her Shamanic powers to their cause. Murphy seems to get lost in this book. There is very little direction, that leaves the reader to wonder where we are going in the book, and why we even care about the journey.

In Urban Shaman, there was a definite liquid continuity to the story, and the main bad guy was very bad, and interesting at the same time. In Thunderbird Falls, the bad guy is not really even identified until the last quarter of the book, and the "murder" isn't really convincing that it is anything more than a natural death. There is a good amount of meta-babble creating pages and pages of out of body sensations and color without any acutal basis for why all this sensation in necessary. All in all, it was OK, but I would wait until I could get a used copy for a couple bucks instead of paying the $15.00 sticker.

It has to be perplexing to want to be a car mechanic and find yourself a cop on the beat instead. But for Joanne Walker this was only the beginning. Now she has discovered she is destined to be a shaman and that doesn't sit well with her at all. After surviving being fatally stabbed while saving the world in the previous volume - Urban Shaman - Joanne deserves a rest. But what she gets is a body in the Gym shower. When Joanne slips into the Dead Zone to find out how the young woman died she finds herself out of her depth and in deep trouble. A spirit that shouldn't have noticed her has, and thus begins another series of events where, kicking and screaming, Joanne must save the world once again.

Joanne investigates the death on her own and finds her path keeps criss-crossing that of a coven of witches who apparently need her help. The dead woman played an important role in the covens plans and Joanne would be the perfect replacement. All she has to is help with the reincarnation of and ancient wizard who is also intent on saving the world. Or maybe he isn't. Joanne must puzzle out the answers to this question and many others if she is to drag Seattle back from the edge of disaster, and, incidentally, get her head together about her spiritual powers.

I find I like this series more than I ever expected. There's no lack of books in the occult suspense/romance genre and it's always refreshing to read a book with a strong female lead that doesn't keep trying to commit suicide or get tangled up in kinky sex. C. E. Murphy is a strong writer, and her characters are interesting and believable. Joanne is a sassy, uppity lady with a good share of intelligence dealing with a very complicated reality. You can't help but like her, or her friend Gary the cab driver, or Captain Morrison, her boss and foremost critic. The story, with Joanne as narrator, moves well, and has many flashes of enjoyable sarcasm. Despite being the second volume, I think Thunderbird Falls can be read on its own - but you will want to read Urban Shaman anyway, so get both.

Joanne Walker, or Siobhan Walkingstick, is stuck with supernatural powers from both sides of her family - the Native American and the Irish. At least her mother tries to help when she can - even though she's dead. But Joanne is having a difficult time accepting what she can do - and what she can't. Since her boss booted her up to beat cop from mechanic, she's been trying to be as normal as possible, which works until she happens upon a dead body in the girls locker room at her gym. Trying to discover what happened to the young woman, she stumbles into a major plan. Not having much by way of tutoring, Joanne relies on her cabbie buddy Gary to help her, as well as her own wits. Until Gary's help is taken out of the equation. Then Joanne realizes she's got to do something, fast. Admittedly, I enjoyed Urban Shaman a lot more, as well as the short story (Banshee Cries) that supposedly took place in between that book and this one. But still a good read.

Unlikely shaman Joann Walker, Gary, and the Seattle police force return in this second installment after Urban Shaman. Finally facing the facts that all of her magic useage has effected the weather patterns of Seattle, Joann has little idea what to do about it. She has steadfastly tried to turn her back on magic for months. But a near brush with death on the cosmic level and the disappearance of her spirit guide Coyote have lead her to realise she needs a teacher.

Complicating her lessons is the coven she's recently become involved with. She happened to discover one of their members freshly deceased and is taking her place in order to solve the murder. It seems the covens purposes coincide with her own as they plan to bring back a 3,000 year old spirit to right the wrongness in Seattle's weather. But is everything on the up & up?

The romantic tension ratchets up a little bit more in this book. But who will Joann end up embracing? Morrison, Thor the mechanic, or even fatherly but mischievious Gary?

Some of what turns out to be pertinent detail in this book is intruduced to us very vaguely and briefly (uhuhm...cough...the Thunderbird...)while the rest of it seems to drag a bit in the middle. And I found the sacrifice bit cliched and felt that every reader would probably see it coming. But it was an entertaining book and I'm still looking forward to Coyote's reappearance in Coyote Dreams, the next book in the Walker Papers.Why they've retitled the series the Walker Papers I can only guess. And that guess would be, to make it sound more like the Dresden Files, another extremely popular paranormal series, but what do I know?

Ok, let me start out by saying that I own all three books in this series and really like the whole premise. I liked the story line in this book, but I swear, if Jo spends the whole next book whining about being given magical powers, I won't buy another one. I understand the concept that she is stubborn and opinionated and doesn't like her life to change. I got that in the first book (Urban Shaman) and I got that in the second book (Banshees Wail). But can we give it up already? I can't think of anyone on the planet, who, if they found out they had been blessed with this increadible power to affect people's lives for the better, would then spend a year complaining about it. Ok, now that I have that off my chest, let me say that I did enjoy the book. It had a really good storyline and I love the relationship between Joann and Gary and Joann and her boss. Is there a possible romance in the future? Hmmm, guess we'll have to wait and see.

C.E. Murphy has a gift of drawing the reader into her world and making the unbelievable seem believable. THUNDERBIRD FALLS is no exception as she once again weaves her magic.

Joanne Walker is a reluctant shaman. She didn't believe in the supernatural until events left her with no other choice (see URBAN SHAMAN). Now, as a beat cop, she discovers the dead body of Cassandra Tucker. Cassandra was part of a coven that hoped to bring Virissong back from the Lower World. The coven believes that Virissong's return will rebalance the world and stop the heat wave that is decimating the city's resources.

Joanne joins the coven but is distracted by the hospitalization of her cabbie friend, Gary, who has a heart attack. Her distraction prevents her from seeing that something is terribly wrong as she accidentally assists with releasing demonic spirits on Seattle. Will Joanne be able to stop the demons in time to save Seattle? And why has her spirit guide, Coyote, abandoned her?

Joanne Walker is the kind of person you can envision yourself hanging out with on a Saturday afternoon. She is down-to-earth and not afraid to question herself. She is a bit naive in regards to her shamanistic powers, but that is to be expected from someone who was a skeptic until recently. Her sense of humor keeps her from appearing arrogant and is what makes her character so realistic. It is also the strength of her character that makes this series so entertaining.

This story can be read as a stand alone novel. However, this reviewer highly recommends that readers first read URBAN SHAMAN or the novella in WINTER MOON to better understand Joanne's character and her relationship with Coyote. Readers new to the series may be a bit confused by the whole spirit world and Joanne's aptly named Dead Zone.

Overall, THUNDERBIRD FALLS is a powerful addition to the series and well worth reading. This reviewer looks forward to finding out where Coyote has gone and to seeing how C.E. Murphy further develops Joanne's interpersonal relationships with both Captain Morrision and Gary.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Just a few months after her last successful attempt at saving the world, Joanne Walker is at it again. Mechanic turned beat cop, she finds the dead body of a college student at the gym, and journeys to the Otherworld, AKA "The Dead Zone" for clues. What she discovers is that the dead woman, Cassandra, was a member of a local coven who now needs Joanne's help.

As it turns out, Joanne's massive use of power earlier in the year (Read Urban Shaman for details.) may have had some pretty severe side effects, causing the extreme heat wave now affecting Seattle and quite possibly the world. The only way to relieve the extreme weather patterns is to call on Native American spirit Virissong. Magic must be balanced in this world and to do so, a passage needs opened to allow Virissong to cross over.

In the middle of all of this, Joanne's dear friend Gary suffers a massive heart attack, her boss Morrison doesn't trust her magic, Joanne's spirit guide, Coyote, has gone missing, the coven's plans don't seem quite right, evil seems to have found the open door from that world to this one as well. Joanne is Seattle's only hope and she has just a few days to set everything right again. Looks like more sleepless nights are on the agenda for Joanne and company.

Where in Joanne's first adventure, we see her fighting evil beings from the Celtic half of her heritage, in Thunderbird Falls, she goes head to head with a Native American entity. I like that the duality of her Shamanism is approached this way. To combine knowledge and mysticism from both in one book would just be too confusing to follow. So having Joanne face them in separate adventures helps us to learn a little more about her character without being overwhelmed.

The peril is understated in our current adventure with Joanne. We know something is wrong that could have very severe implications, but where the actual danger lies is the question. Even Joanne is not quite sure. She fears the drastic heat wave is rather unnatural but has no concept of why in the beginning. Then, once she encounters the coven and begins practicing with them, something feels not quite right. Unfortunately she can't put her finger on the heart of the matter so she continues onward, until it's almost too late. Once Joanne's final confrontation comes around though, action picks up immediately and the last segment of the novel is very fast paced.

I thoroughly enjoyed Urban Shaman and was quite excited about Thunderbird Falls in the beginning. While still a very good book with a unique story line, it didn't grab me nearly as much as Urban Shaman did. I found myself putting it down and restarting it several times before finishing. Thunderbird Falls was lacking much of the urgency found in the prior novel, even though C E Murphy still uses a very short timeline to see Joanne through her important mission. This is more than likely due to the fact we, like Joanne, don't know what exactly the threat is or what caused it for most of the novel.

However, if readers are able to stick it out through the less compelling beginning, the unknown factor, and the slower pace, once they reach the peak of adventure, they will love to see everything come in to place.

Gabra Zackman is a fairly new audio performer to me, this being only the second narration of hers to which I have listened, and she is quickly becoming a favorite. Her performance is very well done, with a wide range of voicing capabilities. She has her timing down perfect, knowing just when to add a little zing to her reading. She does a wonderful job holding the listener's attention, which is important in this novel. We can hear the awe in the player's voices, the fear, the frustration, and the joy at seeing everything work out.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, December 2006. All rights reserved.

Joanne Walker, aka Siobhan Walkingstick, is back in the second installment of The Walker Papers. Unfortunately, the force of her personality and the awesome cast of secondary characters introduced in Urban Shaman and back in this installment isn't quite enough to put Thunderbird Falls on my "must not be missed" list.

There's good stuff here, most significantly the growing emotional tension between Joanne and Captain Michael Morrison. I swear, I just love every second they're in each other's company. There's real magic sparking between the two of them and it's very patiently and subtly drawn. I adore Gary - and there's a comforting sense of continuity in the faux-familial bond between them. It's nice to see two characters who genuinely adore one another like they do and not have it be in any way romantic. Billy Holliday is back, too, and while not quite as out there as he was in the first book, he's definitely one of the most joyously unique characters I've read in a book in a long time. And I love Joanne's internal monologue. She's sarcastic and self-deprecating and her observations often make me chuckle.

What I DON'T love, though, is that despite the impressive goings on in Urban Shaman and all the challenges Joanne Walker triumphs over there, she seems to have not only stagnated in her shamanic development, she's actually regressed and is back to that annoying "oh no, I don't WANT to be Shaman" whining. It doesn't stop her from using her abilities, it just makes every time she does turn into a paragraph about why she doesn't want to. That got old in the first book. To have it carry over into this one after everything she accomplished previously is tedious. I think there may have been some progress in that regard by the end of Thunderbird Falls, but I'm not sure how much.

Then there's the central plot. Joanne stumbles across a dead body and ends up mixed up in coven with dubious motives and questionable sanity. She loses Coyote in there somewhere, and I have no idea why or how. She sure doesn't seem at all bothered by it, despite the fact that there are things going on around her that point to the fact that her fight against Cerrunos in Urban Shaman threw things severely out of whack in the astral realm and it's bleeding over into this one (or visa versa...not totally clear on that) and she's not got the first clue how to fix it. Seattle is sweltering and drought stricken, nature is out of balance, and it looks like it might be all Joanne's fault. And nothing in any of that is anywhere near as compelling or dangerous as anything in Urban Shaman. Until the last quarter of the book, in fact, there's nothing even alluding to daunting, then the last quarter was a mishmash of big reveals and final showdowns that weren't very clearly written. Not to mention that by that point I can't say I cared that much about it, however it concluded.

I'm going to give Coyote Dreams a try because the parts I did like in this book I liked very, very much. I still think CE Murphy has a unique gift for writing secondary and ancillary characters, and I truly like Joanne when she's not going the "poor me" route. Plus, I've just GOT to see what develops between her and Morrison. I just hope for a cleaner, less meandering, tauter plot.

After reading Urban Shaman, I ordered Thunderbird Falls, hoping that Murphy had built on the promising world that she'd set up and tightened up her story-telling skills. I'd very much enjoyed Urban Shaman, but unfortunately I did not make it more than four chapters into this sequel.

The first problem is that even though this is a sequel, there's a sense of a long passage of time, rather than picking up shortly after the first book left off. It left me disoriented right away, wondering if I'd missed a book in between (according to Amazon, though, I did not.) Second is the character's reaction to having, as Murphy herself puts it in Urban Shaman, "phenomenal cosmic powers." See, most people would start acting like Bruce Almighty or Gollum. I realize it's a well-trod path, but it's well-trod because that's human nature. Our heroine, on the other hand, swears that she hates her powers and doesn't want to use them. That could have been interesting anyway, depending on how deeply Murphy explored her motives, BUT Joanne then uses those powers that she hates TWICE in the first few chapters. The first use seems justified - medical emergency. The second use is utterly unnecessary from a logical standpoint, but the author needed to send our heroine on a very long, very disorienting and outright incomprehensible metaphysical sequence, which is about where I lost interest.

My recommendation if you enjoyed Urban Shaman is to skip this one. It will only remind you of all the weak points of the first.

I enjoyed the first, but this one did not quite meet expectations. The characters did not develop, and the story was flat and predicatable. Still worth the read though.