Chapter Six was fairly short, so I kept reading ahead and finished Chapter Seven as well. I enjoyed both of these chapters quite a bit. There's an assassination attempt on the train that has some good writing in it, doing a good job describing the noise and wind of a speeding train. Then there comes a situation where the protagonists are forced to think fast...and don't. Deception and violence solve the issue eventually, though.
And so ends the very short chapter six, leading to seven, where things begin to get a little more interesting. Early on, there's a mention of werewolves...I'm not sure if this was some kind of typo and it's meant to say "warlock" (a term later used), or if this is a world with werewolves as well as demons. What is this, the Dresden Files? :)
Tabor uses the old chestnut, so common to James Bond, of infiltrating the bad guy's party. And this party turns out to be a masquerade. I think that the number of masked balls in fiction vastly outnumber the ones that have taken place in real life...ever (not counting Halloween, of course). A quick little side note is that the characters have a short discussion about the politics of the moment (what a fine phrase), reminding the reader about what's going on in the country at this point in time. Tabor in general has a decent eye for history, although I'm not sure how accurate he depicts the racism of the times.
Annoying, Tabor does include the classic (and bad, in my opinion) bluff of "Do you want to go get your boss, ask him, and get in trouble?" I'm not saying this might not work on occasion, but it seems ever time any book, movie, or TV character wants to try that one, it works. Villains really need to outline these kinds of situations in their employee handbooks: make a note for the Evil Overlord list.
Now, here's where I'm puzzled. They head into the lair of the villain, then pull off their masks. After it becomes known that Lucas Eigenstulf, in addition to seeming to know the whereabouts of these guys at all times, also knows Dirk; they were in the same school, and army unit. And it's not like there's a vast multitude of Native Americans in Boston.
So when it's revealed that Eigenstulf knows exactly who they are, it's not exactly a surprise. It would be far more of a surprise if he didn't recognize his war buddy, and couldn't put two and two together and figure out who Hawkins was. Then we reach the end of the chapter, with the following passage.
Pencil and Curtains leaned back from the table, glancing back and forth nervously. “I
apologize, but this charade was too much for my nerves,” Eigenstolf said. “Skullsman, please
get my bag.” He nodded at pencil, who promptly stood and scurried across the room. He
emerged from behind the bar with an old brown sack. He tossed it to Eigenstolf, who caught it
in one hand.
“I was thinking we should put some real skin in this game,” He said, as he reached into
the small cloth sack. “Or, bone, rather,” he added, as he pulled the yellowish-brown object,
sowing thousands of dust particles in the wake. He set the decades old human skull carelessly on
the pile of cash in the center of the bright crimson poker table.
Finally, the skull makes an appearance. Well, it's a skull, at least; they tend to look the same to the untrained eye. Playing poker for the McGuffin; classic. Not sure what stakes Calloway and Hawkins will bring to the table, though. I do hope that Tabor finally makes a fictional poker game fairly realistic. In every fictional game of poker, everyone draws these straights, flushes, four of a kinds, full houses...you name it. The important hands always feature each player with improbably good cards. No one ever gets taken out by a pair of nines, unlike real poker.
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