Review – Threads of Malice by Tamara Siler Jones (4/5 stars)

This is the second book by Jones that features Dubric Byerly as the lead investigator. All in all these books are much more heavy on the horror than the fantasy.

In this book Dubric and crew end up going to the Reaches to investigate the disappearance of a number of young men/boys. The residents of the area are convinced that “the dark” is stealing the boys and that there is nothing to be done. Dubric believes that the disappearances are a simple case of a serial killer being on the loose. Things end up being more complicated than Dubric could have guessed.

I thought this book was much better than the first book of the series. Dubric and Lars are great characters. The story is well written and well put together. There is a lot of action, lots of plot twists and turns, and the characters have a lot of depth and are interesting. This really is a well-written series, it’s just not my type of series.

I have trouble reading these books because they go outside my areas of comfort regarding the blood, gore, and torture in them. This book crosses into uncomfortable, hard to read about areas for me. They are also very scary and I am not big into scary books, they tend to creep me out and give me nightmares. The only reason this book is considered fantasy is because it takes place in a fantasy type realm (castles, pages, etc.) and it touches lightly on dealing with magic. The book is definitely more of a horror/crime type novel.

So, while this book is superbly writing, the characters are very unique, and the plot is deftly twisted…I won’t be reading any more of these books because they are too scary for me. Laugh if you like, but my husband was getting sick of me turning all the lights on in the house at night, so no more of these scary books for me.