Mira Grant: Into the Drowning Deep

In the first in a new series Mira Grant takes the readers to the Mariana Trench where humans are on the menu:

Seven years ago the Atargatis is set off for the Mariana Trench to create a mockumentury about the existence of Mermaids. The voyage ended in tragedy with not a soul on the ship surviving. The footage that was shot on The ship has been locked away and those who have seen it cannot believe that it is real. Now the production company is sending another ship to that area to investigate what had happened and to prove once and forall if Mermaids do exhist. Everyone on the boat is going to get way more than they bargined for.

I have not read a Mira Grant series in a long long time, but it was Grant who intorduced me to reading zombie books, so it is really only fitting that she introduce me to Mermaids books as well. This book was amazing, it had aspects of mystery, horror and urban fantasy all rolled in to one. You really did not what was going to happen next and who was going to survive. I mean who does not love the idea of the deadly mermaids instead of the Disney style ones. Due to the fact that Grant has mixed a few genres within this book you might think that it is oversaturated with ideas but Grant he does not shy away from any of the genres and took the best aspectsnofneach to create this story. Some of the scenes are quite brutal in their description but these are countered with the scientific discovery aspects so there is a nice balance and Grant does not hit you with death after death. There is also a nice suspense aspect as there are so many points of view throughout the book that you are not 100% sure which views are going to be there in the end.

The imagination and research that Grant put in to this book was exceptional. She tried to cover all different types of angles when it came to mermaids from where they live to additional organizism that may be down in the mariana trench as well. You can also tell that Grant put in a lot of thought as to how the mermaids would be able to interact with human on both their territory as well as above the surface. The intelligence that they have is awesome and are basically killing machines that can work in groups or solo. I’m glad that Grant did not make them mindless killing machines, they have the ability to adapt and plan their attacks which makes them that much more interesting.

There are quite a few points of views in the book so you get a fairly rounded story as to why many of the individuals are on the mission to find mermaids, however, the most frequent point of view that we encounter is Victoria's. Victoria is on the ship for several reason, most importantly she wants to prove that mermaids exist as her older sister was on the maiden voyage of this research ship and no one from that vessel made it home. She is also a brilliant scientist who wants to use her knowledge of ocean sounds as a guiding tool for the discovery. In many ways Victoria is the scientist and is very calculating in everything she does. This does make her portrayed as naive at times And this is most seen in her relationships with people (I’ll say slightly typical for the scientist type to be portrays this way however, Victoria does gain more and more confidence the farther in to the book you get).

I love that this book is about mermaids and Grant’s idea of the mermaid is not the little mermaid that we all grew up with. These are deadly killers who have human meat on their menu and according to the mermaids it’s a tasty feast. I look forward to the next book in the series to see where Grant takes it.

Enjoy!!!

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Spencer Kope: Collecting the dead

 In the first in a new series Spencer Kope introduces readers to an FBI tracker that  is known as the Human Bloodhound:

When regular trackers are unable to find someone or a clue then the FBI calls in Steps and Jimmy. They are the elite trackers and are able to find anyone, even in remote locations, even when others have failed. Steps has a special vitality he calls shine that shows him where people have traveled to, what they have touched etc. He uses this ability to hopefully bring those who are lost, missing or kidnapped home safely. However, more often than not this does not happen. In their latest case Steps and Jimmy are called to a crime scene where Steps recognizes the Shine from a previous case. Based upon what Steps found they have eleven missing women who fit the same pattern and they are in a race against time to find them before its too late.

I have read other tracker based books before but those involved search and rescue dogs as part of the main story not just a person, so I did find this concept interesting. Kope does a good job of showing how Steps hides his ability while on a track but at the same time you have to think in real like these trackers do some amazing things, that maybe there is an aspect of realism to this idea; the ability to see what others cannot. Kope also does not shy away from the fact that not everyone makes it out alive when they are missing as well as having fairly detailed crime scene information as Steps details what happened.

Steps has the ability to see what he terms Shine. He has has it ever since a near death/he did die when he was a young child. Shine is the essence of an individual. It follows you where ever you go, each person has a different color/colors and this color changes based upon the living status of that person. This is how Steps is able to find people and clues that no one else is able to see. All of this makes Steps an interesting character with his gift / curse as he struggles with those times when he is not able to find the victim in time and Steps can tell mid-track if the person he is tracking is still alive or dead. This plays on his sanity and he struggles with whether he should continue on or not.

I will say that the secondary characters are not fleshed out as much asI would like them to be, even Steps’ partner Jimmy. This book is very much Steps’ story and that is where Kope decided to focus on with not only the plot but character development as well. For secondary characters you basically just get to know them/see them through their relationship with Steps.

This was a really good read with an interesting twist on the tracking idea. I like the idea of the elusive serial killer that Steps has been tracking for years but has been unable to find, this added an additional dynamic to the story as it does test Steps' focus. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this series.

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