For Heaven's Eyes Only by Simon R. Green

Synopsis From Back Cover:

I'm Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, a member of the Drood family.  We Droods have been holding back the forces of darkness for generations.  It's a hell of a job - and we're good at it.

But now the Droods have hit a bad patch, what with the death of our Matriarch and the discovery that she was killed by one of our own.  it's left us in more than a bit of disarray, and it goes without saying that those forces of darkness are taking advantage of the situation.  There's a Satanic Conspiracy brewing - one that could throw humanity directly not the clutches of the biggest of the big bads forever.

Things are looking grim - and here I am, not able to be of any help.  On account that I'm dead.

Okay, I'm willing to admit that the last line of the synopsis is a little misleading.  Yes, Eddie did die at the hand of a Antidrood in disguise, pretty much on the last page of From Hell With Love.  And yes, he is still dead at the beginning of this book.  He's in some sort of frozen limbo, hence the book cover, and isn't really sure what's going on.  It doesn't take long for Molly and his family to get him back into the land of the living though.  While he was in that frozen manor, Eddie is given a hint at some nasty goings-on in the form of a Satanic Conspiracy.  Now the Droods haven't really taken one of these conspiracies seriously for decades now.  Not since the last major Satanic plot hatched by the Nazi's during World War II.  So nobody really thinks much of it right away.

It's only after some routine investigations start to go horribly wrong, that the family is willing to concede that there may actually be something to the whole thing.  Because it's a Satanic Conspiracy, they turn to Harry Drood and his half demon lover, Roger Morningstar, to figure out what's going on from the Hell side of things.  I love the return of Harry and Roger, the other super couple of the Drood family.  Even though Eddie and Harry don't like or trust eachother, they are still family.  And with the Droods, family counts more than anything else.

I'm not going to get into all the twists and turns, because there is a lot of them.  There are major betrayals that rock the family's foundation to it's core.  The family loses some of it's key members, though I'm hoping that somehow they will be brought back in a future book.  I'm actually still a little sad by the loss.  Though I must say, I like they way the two were together at the end.  They were two characters, that despite how much I loved them, I never felt they could be trusted.  In the end, not only was that trust solidified, but what they had between them, was finally revealed to be real and stronger than anything else in their lives.

Through some spatial manipulation, sheer violence, and a heap of good luck, the Droods are able to squash the Satanic Conspiracy and save the world once again.  And though everything seems kosher when they return, it doesn't take long for the Eddie and the Droods to suffer a catastrophic setback, one that I will have to wait for the next book to figure out.  You got to love those cliffhanger endings.

Other Books In The Series:

The Man With the Golden Torc
Daemons Are Forever
The Spy Who Haunted Me
From Hell With Love

Mailbox Monday for 9/16/12

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme created by Marcia at Mailbox Monday and is being hosted all this month by Kristen at BookNAround. 

I received a hardcover of The Black Count by Tom Reiss for review from the publisher, Crown.

Favorite Fictional Character ---- Bumblelion

I'm not sure if it's because, thanks to some wonderful bloggers, I took two months off of doing these posts myself, but the idea of thinking up new characters has been just a little daunting to me this week.  Not that I am at a loss for some great characters, but I'm a little at a loss of coming up with a theme for the month.  So, for this month, I think I'm just going to wing it and do whatever I want to.  October will be all about Halloween and December will be about Christmas.  Now I just need to think of a theme for Nov.  So with no further ado, I present one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time, Bumblelion.

I'm almost willing to bet that most of you will not remember the 80s cartoon, The Wuzzles.  It only lasted 13 episodes, so I'm not going to blame you for your forgetfulness.  Well, at least I won't judge you for it too harshly.  I won't look down on you for not playing the board game, reading the books, coloring in the lines, or hugging a stuffed animal.  I won't think you had a barren childhood for not knowing who Bumblelion is or what Butterbear means to him.  I won't feel bad for you if you don't understand the true pleasure this show was to watch.

Since I'm going with the assumption that you still don't know what the heck I'm talking about, I'll fill you in on some of the details.  The Wuzzles are a race of creature that feature the characteristics of two different animals.  Hence the name Bumblelion.  He is half bumblebee, half lion.  Take his sweetheart Butterbear, half butterfly and half bear.  They live on the island of Wuz and are surrounded by a life that is split in half, just as they are.  The eat appleberries, use telephongraphs, are bugged on picnics by flants, and some live in castlescrapers.  

Bumblelion is the unofficial leader of the group, especially when they are trying to negate the evil Crock.  Crock is half dinosaur, half crocodile and all mean and nasty.  He is so jealous of what the Wuzzles have, but never really wants to earn it on his own.  Bumblelion is courageous and cool under pressure, so he is the natural choice to press their issues against Crock.  He was the perfect character for any boy to love.  He was athletic, stood up to the bullies, and could fly.  What kid doesn't want to fly?  

Episode of the Wandering Knife by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Synopsis From Back Cover: 

Someone Stabbed Sister
     In her fortress of a house - a front-page slaying and a murder weapon that mad the family rounds.

Someone Strangled Mother
     with a damp silk stocking while everybody but one slept.

Someone Smashed Aunt Alice
     at midnight in the kitchen while the family skeleton rattled in the dark.

Blood run thicker and thicker in these three tingling tales of murder and related villainy.

I'm trying to get caught up on reviews, so this one will be rather short and use less florid words than I normally would for a Mary Roberts Rinehart book.  I can promise though, that I could endlessly babble about the suspense that Rinehart is able to produce in these three short stories.  I could wax eloquent on the way Rinehart is able to slowly build the tension until it snaps and explodes of the page, bathing the reader in fearful death.  I could even, in minute detail, recreate the ingenious twists and turns that Rinehart throws out as red herrings to keep her reader on tenterhooks.  I could do all those things, but I think I will let the idea of them speak for themselves.

What I did want to mention, in a few sentences, is that I loved the return of Hilda Adams in the last story.  Her fans know her better as, Miss Pinkerton, the ingenious nurse who always seems to find herself in the middle of familial murders.  I don't know if she is the only reoccurring character that Rinehart created, but I do know that she is one of my favorite characters from any mystery writer.  She is one of those amazing creations that despite her fears and self doubts, never fails to summon the intelligence and courage needed to figure out why people are dying under her nose.  She may not like this part of her job, but when a certain police inspector asks for her help, our Miss Pinkerton is always willing to do what needs to be done.

I was going to continue along the same vein for the primary investigators in the other stories, but I think I would rather leave you with one further sentence.  If for whatever reason I have not managed to convince you that Mary Roberts Rinehart is a mystery writer that you need to read, please pick up one of her books and prove me right.

Challenges:  VM (Occupational Hazards)

Winners!

 

The winner is..... Lauren of The Past on the Plate!

The winner is..... Staci of Life in the Thumb!

Mailbox Monday for 9/10/12

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme created by Marcia at Mailbox Monday and is being hosted all this month by Kristen at BookNAround. 

I received a hardcover of The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg for review from the publisher, Crown, for review.

I received a hardcover of Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee by Thomas J. Craughwell from the publisher, Quirk Books, for review.

Sorry!

I just wanted to tell everyone how sorry I am that I haven't had the time to post anything in almost a week.  Life has gotten pretty crazy around here and I'm just not having the time or the energy to get a post started, let alone finished.  I'm hoping things will calm down after this weekend, and that by next week things will be back to normal.  I just ask for you guys to be patient with me.