Ritus

In 2004 Eric von Kastell is following the legendary beast that his family has been hunting for centuries. His quest takes him from Munich, via Sankt Petersburg, up to the snow-covered Croatian park Plitvice. Armed with special vision, the body of an Adonis, plenty of high tech weaponry, gadgets, and of course a truckload of money, there's not much that can stand in his way... or is there?

Winter at the Plitvice Nationak Park

In the mid-18th century (1764 - 1767) Jean Chastel finds himself saddled with the unenviable task of tracking a gruesome wolf through the Gévaudan region. After his sons had been injured by the wolf, they started wreaking their own brand of havoc on the region, alongside the original beast. Jean hopes that the blood show more of the original beast can cure their curse.

Monument to the beast slayer in La Bresseyre-Saint-Mary

For the most part, the story tended to bore me. The contemporary part had plenty of action and details about were-creatures in general. Unfortunately, its action-oriented theme didn't give the characters much time to endear themselves to the reader, let alone go through any significant development. There was just Eric parading his perfect jerky self around, Lena happily playing the pretty little naive scientist, and the mysterious Justine - whose sole purpose seemed to be out-jerking Eric. Gotta love sibling rivalry, eh?

On the French side of things, though there was enough time for character development, I can't say I found anyone likable either. There was Antoine the uber-jerk with pedophilic tendencies, Piere the long-suffering doormat, Florence the long-suffering dainty damsel in distress, Jean the ... er.. long-suffering main-character and Gregoria the long suffering nun hell-bent ...er, I mean determined on being the most proper person to walk the Earth, as a form of penance.

Score: 2.3/5 stars

From a purely linguistic point of view, I did notice a significant improvement in my reading comprehension. The numerous graphic scenes of violence and sex left a much more lasting impression on me. While in Kinder des Judas similar scenes affected me about as much as browsing the Yellow Pages, here I could associate a much more vivid picture to the words.

I had plenty of time set aside for this book, specifically a two-week-long holiday where I wouldn't get distracted by anything shiny from the Interwebs. Heck, even during the two 10-hour flights I barely managed to read three chapters. That said, I still chose to add the series' next installment to my to-read list. I'm now itching to find out just how the two stories (Jean and Eric's) converge. The lack of likable characters doesn't make me particularly enthusiastic about it though.

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review of book 2: Sanctum

Eric is also present in other books from the Dunkle Spannung series:
review of book 5: Judassohn
review of book 6: Judastöchter show less

...I'm also not thrilled by the end of this book. I was aware that there is a sequel but the ending is still quite abrupt. Jean's story reaches a point more or less natural point of closure, Eric leaves us on a rather unsatisfactory cliffhanger.I guess the project is still salvageable if he pays some more attention to Eric in the next book but all things considered I am not terribly impressed with Ritus. Still, if you are looking for a fast paced, action packed and not too challenging read on werewolves you could do a lot worse than this novel....

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