Staked / Kevin Hearne

4 out of 5 stars

When a druid has lived for two thousand years like Atticus, he's bound to run afoul of a few vampires. Make that legions of them. Even his former friend and legal counsel turned out to be a bloodsucking backstabber. Now the toothy troublemakers—led by power-mad pain-in-the-neck Theophilus—have become a huge problem requiring a solution. It's time to make a stand.

As always, Atticus wouldn't mind a little backup. But his allies have problems of their own. Ornery archdruid Owen Kennedy is having a wee bit of troll trouble: Turns out when you stiff a troll, it's not water under the bridge. Meanwhile, Granuaile is desperate to free herself of the Norse god Loki's mark and elude his powers of divination—a quest that will bring her face-to-face with several Slavic nightmares.

As Atticus globetrots to stop his nemesis Theophilus, the journey leads to Rome. What better place to end an immortal than the Eternal City? But poetic justice won't come without a price: In order to defeat Theophilus, Atticus may have to lose an old friend.

I read this to fill the Dead Lands square of my 2018 Halloween Bingo card.

There’s plenty of vampire action in this installment of the Iron Druid chronicles to qualify it for my Dead Lands entry for Bingo. Plus it was a great choice for a Friday evening after a long week’s work!

I think this is one of the best books in this series—for once, I was perfectly content with the ending, even though at least one of my favourite characters was lost along the way. Granuaile and Archdruid Owen both get their own chapters and concerns. Owen’s troll troubles were highly amusing and his new Druid school was encouraging. I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Granuaile’s campaign against her step-father, beyond finding it quite realistic that it would take up more time and energy that she had anticipated.

Atticus seems to have finally have got things settled down, at least until the opening of the next (and last) book. A good choice on the author’s part, I think, to finish up before the ideas get feeling to repetitive. There’s only so much fleeing & smiting that he can do before he’s fought & fled from everything and everybody.

I think it’s a toss-up between the first book and this one for my favourite Atticus tale.