I love Cal and Niko and Robin, and I love how Rob Thurman can take such dark material and make it laugh out loud funny! ( )

The series needs to be read in order to better understand what is taking place. Cal and Niko will always need to fight for their very survival in a world that few humans even know exists. ( )

It's all about family, really. Robin's is coming to town - for one night only - and New York may never be the same after the Panic. But the Pucks aren't the only family dropping by for a hey-how-are-you visit. Niko's long-absent father wants to reconnect, and Cal? Cal's having some brother issues of his own.

Should have known that empty cage in the Nevah's Landing house wasn't a good sign! Just when you think it might be getting safe(ish) to be Cal and Niko, Thurman ups the ante. Fabulous! ( )

I hate to say it, but I think I'm getting burned out on this series. The writing is still good and the pace is fast (well, an odd flashback near the end briefly brought things to a screeching halt), but I find that it feels like the same thing repeated too many times, i.e. the Auphe are dead, the Auphe aren't dead, etc. The element that had me really excited about this book--the Puck reunion--ended up being a minor incident right at the beginning, and then Robin Goodfellow didn't have a huge role in the rest of the book.

It also felt like a lot of the action in the middle of the book was contrived for the sake of action, i.e. "We really shouldn't confront this person, they are insane--oh look, now they are trying to kill us!" Mind you, that's been a recurring theme in the series anyway, but it's forgivable for a while. Thurman is a much stronger writer of male characters, and that stood out here; Promise, Niko's girlfriend, had a shadow role and was present but ignored in some lengthy scenes.

The overall theme of Doubletake was family. This brings about some intriguing revelations about Niko's background, including a nice twist at the end I didn't see coming.

I've enjoyed the Cal and Niko books. They are excellent dark fantasy with some genuinely freaky villains (Sawney Beane *shudder*). However, it's hard to evolve characters and keep things fresh book after book, and I think this will be the last one in the series for me. ( )

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:
www.allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com

Filthy and profane and fabulous, DOUBLETAKE seduced me with it's sly wit and cavalier heroes. Though this was my first Cal Leandros book, Thurman's combination of recap and forward momentum meant I dove in without a hitch. Robin Goodfellow's Panic flew by in a haze of hormones and g-strings, and by the time things moved on to murderous automatons and mummified cats, I was hooked.

Though the first third of DOUBLETAKE was an entertaining rush, switching gears from horny pucks to a homicidal nemesis slowed things down considerably. The world building was still fascinating, but the quips were harder to come by. Just as Cal and his partners didn't know how to to defeat their enemy, so the story meanders as they pursue numerous avenues looking for an edge. There was no shortage of distractions along the way, however, everything from a mostly dead Greek god to a subterranean black market. In addition to those goodies, I'm a sucker for a good buddy story, and the devotion of these two brothers and their puck sidekick more than qualifies. It was this rough and tumble camaraderie that held most of my attention, and by the time the story had reached Cal's rotund, amorous arms dealer (and a plan to move forward), I was invested in the plot again.

Thurman has created characters that leap off the page, equal parts dark and funny in a blend that is a rare delight to find. And though I thought DOUBLETAKE slowed down in the middle, I admire the organic way various plots and schemes wound through this book and the series as a whole. As this was my first book in the series, I didn’t have a particularly strong reaction to some of the bombshells sprinkled through out the plot, and I don’t know if I’ll ever go back and read the pain and insanity Cal has struggled with in prior books. Going forward, however, I'm certainly invested in the metamorphosis he's on the cusp of now. Thurman’s brand of black humor and vivid world building is well worth checking out.

Sexual Content: References to sex, rape, and descriptions of an orgy. ( )