Nothing like getting Labor Day off. Short work week this week! Whoooooo! So let's start off another round of reviews with a couple of books that are wrapping up storylines. Did either of them manage a satisfying conclusion?
Dooley, Griffin, the sheriff and the Monster decide they are going to let this Herzog guy get his way. Which is to use the blood of Rosa's father to create a doorway to a place where he can become a godlike being. I'm not at all clear on why that would work, but apparently it will. While the Monster kills the weird little critters in large numbers, the others sneak into the barn.
Rosa wants nothing to do with any of it, but her father convinces her that she does care about Dooley, as the sole being to form a connection with her. She's still about die, but Dooley kills Herzog with a crooked rifle, then Rosa lets the Monster, sorry Mr. Dirck, throw her father into that shadow realm.
In the aftermath, everyone tries to return to their lives. Dirck becomes a reverend in town, Rosa offers the land of her birth to Mr. Manor and his wife, as a sort of apology for buying his bar/hotel. Griffin hangs around to run an apothecary, and experiment on those little creatures. The lizard lady made it back to her creator, Dr. Moreau, who is now interested in Sangre del Moro.
Seeley and Campbell make it very clear that Rosa harbors no affection for her father, given she encourages Mr. Dirck to dispatch him. She doesn't even look at him until he's being chucked in. Which explains why they kind of brush over that reunion. It felt like the sort of thing that might get more page time, but if Rosa doesn't care, I suppose we shouldn't either.
Makes it all the odder she listens when he tells her Dooley is important to her. Really? She seemed entirely content to leave with her native earth whether Dooley came with or not. She's shown walking by herself, singing beforehand. There's not the slightest hint of her reconsidering until her dad reaches out with his mind. One could argue she looked after him when he was injured, but could also argue that was when she was still without the native soil she needed to heal. She still needed someone to watch her back. Considering she got stabbed in it this issue, maybe she still does.
Colman squares off with Kavinder Singh, who takes a bottle across the face with little concern and throws Coman headfirst through a window. Which doesn't tear up his face, interestingly. Colman almost literally falls into a shotgun (which I feel like Brummond draws as looking too new of a model, but oh well), and then there were three. The farmer, the lady, and the crazy redneck with the hammer. But the lady takes care of the idiot, mostly by goading him into being stupid and chasing her blindly into getting his head blown open. Which Brummond illustrates with eyeball and scalp and hair being flung backwards and apart.
Down to two, and Colman's bleeding and hiding out in a jail. She tracks him, makes him an offer. Kill yourself, I'll look after your wife and kids. Colman agrees to 'give her his back,', but suicides go to Hell. Will she kill him quick? There's praying, but I'm not clear if he's praying aloud and she's just listening, or if she's praying aloud for him. Either way, Colman found a lot of TNT in that jail, which he used to blow it, and her, up.
Don't worry, his back was to the jail when he depressed the plunger, so he did technically give her his back. She just wasn't in any position to shoot it. I guess the argument would be, she didn't hesitate to shoot that one guy that had the drop on her but didn't want to backshoot her. So if she's foolish enough to offer mercy now, then she deserves to get hoist on the same as that guy. A lesson in not underestimating one's opponent?
Having won the prize, Colman and his family decide to go back to Missouri. Look man, I live here and I wouldn't recommend coming back. I'm not really sure how I feel about the ending. I'm not disappointed Colman survived, but I'm not ecstatic about it, either. Borden adds in that all the other contestants have bounties, something Colman discovers in the jail, but without knowing the particulars, that doesn't tell me much. You kill the wrong rich, connected asshole and you can get a bounty. It doesn't necessarily sell me on the notion Colman was the only righteous or worthy contestant.
Overall, the pacing just feels a little off. Like the book needed more time to flesh out the characters, because even Colman doesn't seem like he progressed much beyond a cardboard outline. Former solider, trying to be good husband/father. Not much else beyond that, and less for the others. So there wasn't much emotional impact to any of the deaths or the battles, because we don't know them enough to care who wins.
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