Sometimes a book can really surprise you. I expected Dead Roads to be a fairly straightforward urban fantasy story, with
a bit of Cajun flair. What I got was so
much more than that.
The story is centered on three siblings: brothers Sol and Baz, and their estranged
sister Lutie. Sol, who has followed his
father on the path of the traiteur, is investigating suspicious deaths along a
railroad line in the Great Plains. We
learn that a particularly vengeful ghost is responsible for the deaths, and
that only by all three siblings working together will this ghost (and the small
demon controlling it) be vanquished.
What follows is a gritty ghost hunt, as the siblings travel
along the railways to investigate and battle with the ghost. It must be said that the ghosts of Dead Roads are not what you might
expect. They are angry bitter badasses
who can easily do physical damage to a person.
Closely bound, as a fortune teller might do, they can cause insanity and
death. Even proximity to a large number
of ghosts can make someone physically ill.
What really makes Dead
Roads work so well is the characters.
Riopelle creates three strong central characters, and clearly
establishes the relationships between them.
The reunion of the siblings is at the emotional center of the book. I found this unexpected, and surprisingly
moving. While the brothers have grown up
together, their sister was taken from them at an early age, and only blurry memories
remained.
Dead Roads is a
strong assured first novel. Its
emotional depth is quite surprising given how you may perceive the book in
terms of how it fits in genre. I’m
looking forward to reading future efforts by Riopelle.
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