This series gets better with each book - Cal and Niko are 2 charactors who I have grown to care about very much, I worry about what will happen to them and how things will eventually turn out. They are people I think about even when I am not reading their story.

Plus I have a soft spot for stories that take place in NYC - I love see my home town through an authors eyes. ( )

Monsters exist and the humans are completely unaware of most of them. Not so for Cal and Niko. They have lived with, and battled them their entire lives. After all what we call "slaughter", the monsters called "dinner". I really liked the different points of view, something Cal & Niko were not ever short on. But this time they shared the narration. The first book Rob Thurman did this for, Deathwish, was always one of my favorites of this series. The story not only goes back and forth between the two narrators, it also goes back and forth between two time lines. I really like the stories of the past, all the books have a couple of snippets or stories about the past, but this one really delves into a past timeline, and it adds so much to the history of the characters. I don't want to say too much, no spoilers, but there are a couple of twists and turns that are surprising. ( )

Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION’s Alluring Angel – Kathy:
--Actual rating 4.5 Skulls

Slashback, the 8th book in Rob Thurman’s Cal Leandros series, is a gritty, good vs. evil compelling read. The bond shared between brothers Cal and Niko is the driving force that propels this story.

Slashback finds Cal and Niko thrust into the crosshairs of a supernatural killer unlike any that they have encountered before. How do you fight and kill something that seemingly can’t be stopped? Sometimes you just got to take of leap of faith and when the only thing you have faith in is each other, that leap can be a deadly one.

The action in Slashback is nonstop. And the “us against the world” mentality of the Leandros brothers, continues to tighten the brotherly bonds.

Slashback grabs the reader’s attention from the start and doesn’t let go until the end. ( )

Serial killers - Niko and Cal appear to bump into more than their fair share of the nasty critters, and this time the thing that goes bang-flash-dead in the night appears to have it in for Niko and Cal in particular. Spring-heeled Jack is back, and he's bearing a peculiar grudge. But why? And more importantly, how to kill him?

Really, really sorry to have reached the last published (so far) in this series, because I definitely haven't read enough of Cal and Niko. Death and destruction leavened with a healthy amount of sarcasm and brotherly abuse - gotta love it. ( )

After Doubletake, I feared that Thurman had written herself into the proverbial corner. By revealing that Cal’s Auphe-DNA would eventually override his human side, she made our anti-hero into a ticking time bomb to villainy. I wasn't sure where she could go after that. Slashback is the answer – into the past.

This book is more like the first three of the series, with Cal and Niko after a killer, and in over their heads. Naturally, Robin gets pulled into the action to provide insight and witty repartee. So, back to basics. However, half this book is a flashback to twelve years prior when Cal was only 11 and Niko 15. Told from Niko's POV, we learn about a serial killer that lived next door to them, who is somehow connected to their current situation, which is told mostly from Cal’s POV. All this is really an excuse for Niko to have a “breakdown” and Cal to recognize how much he has come to enjoy violence – and what that means for their relationship. He’s relied upon his brother to stop him from becoming a monster. But, what if he has reached the point where Niko isn't able to do so? There’s a bit of angst, some soul-searching and a few revelations from Robin that had been hinted at and everything is wrapped up. The only difference is now Cal has to figure out how to kill Grimm without becoming the very thing he’s trying to defeat.

Though I enjoyed the story, it didn't grab me by the throat like previous entries. The case is actually rather perfunctory. Cal and Niko face the villain multiple times, getting their butts kicked in the process, but continue investigating until they finally defeat him. Just like previous plots. I put the book down many times over the course of a week because nothing critical was happening. I’m not sure where this series can go, though the groundwork appears to have been laid for a crossover with the Trickster series. That has a lot of potential to be fun. Overall, fans of the series will enjoy this but it didn't satisfy me as much as previous books. ( )