Madhouse-Rob Thurman

Madhouse
Rob Thurman
Roc, March 2008, $6.99, 352 pp.
ISBN: 9780451461964

Cal and Niko were years on the run from the Auphe, evil supernatural beings that are so bad that even hell don’t want them. They live in their own bleak dimension where half human- half Auphe was imprisoned for two years. Now he has opened a supernatural detective agency with his devoted and overprotective brother Niko and for the first time they have friends. Robin Goodfellow, a puck is their and Niko are involved with a vampire Promise.

Something strange happened at the Metropolitan Museum and through Promise’s friend with the Valkyrie Sangrida, Cal and Niko are on the case. A display case shatters from the inside and the remains of Sawney Beane, the non-human Redcap are missing. Somehow centuries ago people formed an army and burned him at the stake; but he is back and on a killing streak eating human flesh with the Revenants. Cal and Niko go against him many times are lucky to come away with their lives. As if they didn’t have enough with Sawney to worry about, Robin becomes a target from someone who wants him dead.

Cal is still messed up with his time with the Auphe and is wary of everyone except Prmise, Robin and Niko and he hopes that he can learn to live without fear. He is a hard edged diamond in the rough who is starting to learn to trust people like the werewolf and the vampire. This is a great mystery wrapped inside an urban fantasy. Readers will feel for Cal who gives up the woman he loves because he knows the Auphe will never leave him alone. He is a Byronic hero who knows his life is not his own.

Harriet Klausner