Thursday, March 18, 2021

The Dark Terror – review


Author: Jerry Knaak

First Published: 2019

Contains spoilers  

The Blurb: Stunning Revelations

As Elizabeth Rubis learns to rule the children of the night and develop her abilities, her recent past comes back to haunt her. Friends become fiends and victims rise from the grave creating new dilemmas and harrowing situations.

Clandestine Assassins

Serge Da Rocha may have been defeated, but he was not the only vampire hunter. His compatriots descend on the Bay Area to rid the world of this vampire infestation that plagues Northern California.

Survival at All Costs

In the exciting 3rd novel of The Dark Passage series, what will Elizabeth do, what lengths will she go to, what sacrifices will she make to ensure her survival? Will she survive? Or will her enemies prevail?

The review: This is the third instalment of Jerry Knaak’s Dark Passage series (you can also read my reviews of vol one and two) and, like the first two, it focuses upon (and is written in first person from the point of view of) vrykolakas Elizabeth Rubis. Rubis makes for a fantastic central character as she is unrepentant of her vampiric condition and homicidal ways – though she does have a rule against killing children.

In the previous books we saw her attacked and turned, we saw her succumb to a seemingly unquenchable thirst, meeting a vampire detective who has his thirst controlled (more or less) and come face to face with a vampire hunter – an uneasy truce with her maker allowing that situation to be resolved.

Coming into this book she has started to discover some level of control vis-à-vis her thirst but also she needs to come to terms with the fact that she somehow created another vampire. Said progeny is currently hunting babies (as easy prey) with Rubis’ mortal best friend (who has also been turned). Life is made no simpler when she discovers that her brothers (who think she is dead, her body stolen) are in town and the vampire hunting society the Order of Ahura Mazda are using them as bait.

The Order seem to have some impressive pull with the authorities and Elizabeth realises that all the local undead need to work together to deal with them – after all, the enemy of my enemy…

Knaak expands Elizabeth’s range of powers again in this book, adding turning into a swarm of rats and into mist to the already discovered turning into wolf and bat. I do like the way, through the series, that powers have been discovered at moments of crisis – almost a supernatural flight or fight response. The writing is crisp, the pace steadily fast and the primary character gloriously unapologetic. 7.5 out of 10.

This review was written for Vamped and has been posted here with permission.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

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