4 out of 5

Man, motherfuckin’ Chesbro.  I reviewed his Veil, which was written during the same era as this entry in Chesbro’s Mongo series, and did not like it.  Mongo is a dwarf black-belt detective who investigates weirdo mysteries, so when Veil brought in some weirdo elements with new super-spyish character Veil, I was expecting another character in the tradition.  But Chesbro bored that book down by going too new-agey with the whole thing, and the book just didn’t have any edges to it.  At that point I actually hadn’t read any Mongo stuff, but it didn’t give me too high of expectations.

So: fuckin’ Chesbro, ’cause my first Mongo book – toward the end of the series – is exactly what I hoped for – a fun take on supernatural stuff with a quirky lead character, our favorite version of the detective – half persistence, half intelligence, half bumbling, and okay with being three halves.  “Rings” worried me a bit once it threw some plot pieces together, that it was going to de-mystify its supernatural angle (which is what Veil sort of did due to trying to over-justify its nonsense), but Chesbro had a much better grasp on the Mongo world and thus took that de-mystification down a more awesome route of making what’s going on believable.

So start with Mongo attempting to buy a circus, and insert werewolves.  The back of the book puts “werewolves” in quotes, just like that, so you already know they’re probably not that most generic of beasties, and you’re right – they’re actually loboxes, a long extinct incredibly aggressive wolf /dog breed with backwards claws for stomach rippin’ and intelligence of a high enough caliber to link concepts together.  So if they’re long extinct, where are they coming from?  The book is paced very well, putting the pieces together at about the same pace as the reader, and there’s a nice balance of confidence and humor in the writing, along with some soul-searching on Mongo’s behalf as he finds himself in a relationship he could never have guessed at.  Which is where this book also succeeds in leaps and bounds over Veil, and also, I assume, due to Chesbro’s further familiarity with the character, because instead of coming off as trite (as a lot of Veil’s soul-searching did), these feelings are legit, and seem to stem from a fully realized personality.

Still, when all the facts are cleared up about what’s going on, we have about half a book to go, and it seemed like this thing was gonna’ topple in on itself.  It does stumble around to put its players into place for twenty or so pages, but once it does, the whole concluding sequence is quite amazing, and though definitely foreshadowed, still a totally unexpected plotting maneuver.  The book is absolutely worth the read just to get to this last portion.

So I’m back on the Chesbro train, hoping to read more Mongo books, and then, armed with more knowledge about how this writer works, perhaps I can revisit Veil and find rewarding elements that I skipped over before.  Womp.