Vigilantes
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
WMG Publishing
Trade Paper $18.99
Ebook $5.99
Audiobook

As you know (or maybe you don’t know), I’ve been reading KKR’s Anniversary Day Saga and alternating reviews between here and Amazing Stories.

Vigilantes is the eighth book in the ten volume series within a series. It’s kind of an awkward volume to review because everything in the book is a continuation of story arcs begun in earlier books. If you’ve not read them, you won’t follow what I’m saying without my giving in some cases some major spoilers.

I will say this. Early in Vigilantes one of the characters we’ve gotten to know, but probably not love, is brutally murdered. That murder isn’t solved (in a legal sense) before the end of the book, although Bartholomew Nyquist knows who did it. The problem is it takes him away from gathering information about the Peyti Crisis, information gathering that was turning out to be quite productive.

His information impels Noelle DeRicci to undertake some covert investigations of her own, investigations that concern people at the highest levels of the Earth Alliance.

Miles Flint doesn’t make any progress on his end of the investigation. However, he’s got his hands full with his daughter Talia. She’s dealing with the trauma of watching a classmate die in front of her during the Peyti Crisis.

Overall, there aren’t any major twists as far as the information we have is concerned. The murder is going to have major repercussions in the remainder of the story. Some of the information Nyquist obtains is intriguing. But overall, it didn’t seem to me that the story takes any major steps forward.

Rather, upon reflection (because I had to think a bit about how to say this), I realized that what I was seeing in the way Ms. Rusch structured the book was very much along the lines of a chess master arranging the pieces for a devastating endgame.

In looking back, I can see that’s what’s happening. Things are about to pick up speed. There are two books left, and I’m eagerly looking forward to reading them. This is one of the best series out there.

I would very much like to thank WMG Publishing for providing me with review copies of Vigilantes and the rest of the books in the Anniversary Day Saga. They are much appreciated.