Audiobook Review – Downpour (Greywalker, Book 6) by Kat Richardson (3/5 stars)

This is the sixth book in the Greywalker series.  I was unable to find plans for book 7 right now, but I’ll keep looking 🙂  This was one of the weaker books in the series; it started out very slowly and Harper was apart from all the other characters we know and love for the majority of the book.  I listed to this on audiobook.  The audiobook was okay, I am still not totally sold on this narrator…sometimes the guy characters sound a lot alike.

Harper Blaine is out doing some pre-trial investigation in the Olympic Peninsula when she stumbles across a ghostly burning car and its murdered occupant.  This ghost wants Harper to find his murderer.  In investigating the case of this burned car Harper is drawn into some wicked evil magic involving the Sunset Lakes region.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book.  In fact if I hadn’t been listening to this on audiobook, while driving, I probably would have stopped reading it after the first half of the book.  The mystery setup is very tedious.  Harper is out in the middle of nowhere, and because of this, none of the characters or settings we know and love are part of the story.  Harper kind of wanders from site to site interrogating people and trying to piece together the mystery of the Sunset Lakes…I just found this tedious and boring.  In fact I started to fall asleep during my car ride a couple of times.

I know Richardson is always incredibly detailed in her description of character actions, but usually she focuses on something interesting in the story.  I believe the focus of this story was supposed to be Chinese magic and voodoo; but we don’t get to learn much about it because the plot is constantly changing focus.

I also missed Quentin.  He is mysteriously absent for the first 3/4’s of the book (this is explained later in the book) and without Quentin to banter with Harper the book was a lot less fun.

Okay done with the complaining.  There were some things I liked about the book.  The last quarter of the book was really awesome.  Quentin is back in the story and crazy things really start happening and the storyline moves.  I loved some of the stuff that happens between Quentin and Harper and am excited to see where this takes the series in the future.

I also enjoyed the inclusion of Chinese mythology and voodoo; although I wish there had been more info and detail on both (would have been way more interesting than Harper running back and forth between different locations around the Lake).  The story ends well and is completed nicely.

Overall this was my least favorite book in this series.  The beginning really drags; so much intricate detail is put into what Harper does that I found it incredibly boring.  None of the characters I know and love are in the story.  I did enjoy the inclusion of Chinese mythology and voodoo; but we didn’t get to learn enough interesting facts about it.  The last fourth of the book was very good and, once Quentin joined the story, I enjoyed it a lot more.  At the beginning of the book I was wondering why I am even reading this series, the ending reminded me why.  I will definitely read the next book in the series, but if the pacing is similar to this one I probably won’t read any more after that.

People who love ghost stories and investigative urban fantasy should check this series out.  I will also admit that the narrator wasn’t my favorite so that may have colored my impression of the book as a whole; I think I will read future installments instead of listening to them.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges: