“Burnt Offerings,” by Laurell K. Hamilton

FM’s ratings:

1. Premise 7
2. Prose 9
3. Plot 6
4. Characters 8
5. Overall 7

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

In all the ways that are most important to me, this novel is quite good; but it has one major flaw and several minor ones. In previous books in this series, I gradually noticed a trend toward over-writing certain "scenes" - to choose an adequately descriptive word. When you have spent 9 or 10 chapters - maybe 80 or 100 pages - in the same room with essentially the same characters and relatively little plot development, a certain species of tedium sets in. Hamilton valiantly tries to maintain extreme tension in these scenes, but the reader begins to chafe. In this book, more than in the first 6, the plot seems to wander a bit, putting main threads "on hold" while our protagonist deals with other emergencies largely unrelated to the central plot-line. The central plot-line here seems to have been meant to be the mystery of an individual supernatural baddie that is setting major fires throughout Saint Louis through mental powers alone. Hence the title, "Burnt Offerings." We're soon sidetracked by a sub-plot which itself seems to be usurped by a sub-sub-plot which veers off on still another tangent of its own. At least, this is the impression one gets. Maybe we're supposed to see more of a connection between these story-lines prior to the explanation at the end, but I have more than a little difficulty keeping it all straight - maybe because I also read other books at the same time. Hamilton's distinctive brand of humor - one almost wants to call it Anita Blake's humor, as she delivers it in her first-person narrative - is present, but a little too understated here in favor of dark and dangerous tension. I had read, before delving into this series, that it atrophied in its later books from sinister supernatural suspense leavened with semi-trashy romance to mostly trashy romance with less suspense. I'm not finding this to be the case. Maybe that happens later. But a different kind of tedium is setting in which begins to feel like we're reading the same book over and over. We're not quite there yet, either, but I do find myself hesitating to move on to the next book in the series.