The Cormorant

The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Miriam Black is lured to Florida by a rich man wanting Miriam to reveal how he dies. This turns out to be a ruse concocted by someone who wants Miriam dead, someone who knows of her gift, and the only person she can turn to is her mother. Can the two angry Black women stop the killer or will they fall prey to the horrors Miriam saw in her vision?

I got this from NetGalley. Thank you, Netgalley!

In the third installment, Miriam Black goes down to Florida and tries to stop a hellish vision. Along the way, she goes through the meat grinder, runs afoul of the law, drinks the contents of a sizeable liquor store, and does some world class swearing. In short, she's still the Miriam we know and love, though she's transitioned from a thief profitting from her gift to someone who's not afraid to kill to prevent the glimpses of the future she's getting.

How do you stop someone who knows your ever move? That's the problem Miriam is up against for almost the entire book, making for a very chilling villain. To be honest, I was slightly disappointed with his identity but Wendig did a lot to make me forget about that. The ending was great and I'm hoping to see Miriam explore her abilities a little more in the next installment.

Wendig's writing is as polished as ever, both with the similes and the depictions of torturous violence. Thoughout the series, his love of the Chekov's gun principle is apparent, both with Evelyn Black finally making an appearance in this book and the plot device of the mysterious box that puts a nice cherry on top of the climax of this volume.

The framing sequence with Miriam being help captive by two rogue FBI agents was very nicely done. Since we're all aware Miriam is a series character, we know she'll live and letting her tell the story in her less than linear fashion did a lot to build tension. With all the collateral damage Wendig normally inflicts on the cast, Miriam was the only one we knew would survive, though she's got another batch of hospital bills that we taxpayers will be footing the bill for.

Brutal, hilarious, and a lot of fun. That pretty much sums it up. Four out of five stars!



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