Monday, January 06, 2014

Book 3: Waking the Witch

 
After being introduced as a 12 year old girl in the second novel of the series, Savannah Levine narrates the 11th book in the series as a 21 year old.  For the most part, this novel falls very much in line with the rest of the series, though there is more focus on Savannah growing up, and less on romantic entanglements.  Savannah is an odd character in ways - she has always been presented as spunky, saracastic, very independent and yet when it came time to leave and go to college, she chose to remain in Portland and work as a receptionist at Lucas and Paige's investigation agency.  Still, she is tired of being the assistant, and with Paige and Lucas on vacation, and Adam out of town, she jumps at the chance to take the lead on a nearby case.
 
Jesse, another supernatural PI, brings her in on the case.  Two women were killed, execution style in the fall, and now six months later, another woman has been found.  There are clues that this may have involved something supernatural or a ritual of some sort.  Savannah quickly discovers the two main suspects of the case but she can't quite see the supernatural angle if it involves them.  She also develops a bit of a connection with the 8 year old daughter of one of the first two murder victims.  A lot of the things in the case just don't quite add up, and two more people end up dead.  As it turns out, there is more going on than Savannah realizes when she picks up the case.  I had my suspicions of a certain character early on, but Armstrong adds in a few twists I wasn't expecting at all.
 
This novel is a bit different from the rest of the series because while it certainly begins and closes the novel's central mystery, it leaves more unfinished threads than previously novels.  Additionally, it is the first one to end on a cliff hanger.  While they have all had somewhat open endings, implying that certain things would happen as a result of the novel's actions, only Savannah's novel ends with some of the plot lines still in the middle or beginning.  I had already been previously warned that the last three novels are a trilogy compared to the rest of the series, so fortunately, I had the next two novels ready to dive into.

No comments: