Review: A Worthy Addition to the Series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 17, 2014
Let me start with the fact that I have read all of the Master of Whitehall novels and have enjoyed them generally, the fact that it may be the least violent of any series of vampire novels I have ever read makes it stand out a bit in my mind.  There is never that “big bad thing” to be defeated or battles to be fought, these books are usually emotionally driven and the battles are inside the head of the characters and have been well done.Let me expound on that lack of violence for a bit since this novel has a basic premise a story of redemption for a Dale who has been killing innocent people for decades.  In the previous book Lexi’s Legacy we had a situation where you were taken on a journey through the life of Lexi and her transformation into a immortal and it worked wonderfully (I gave it 5 Stars), this novel attempts to do the same and it does pull at your emotional heartstrings a bit but you still have to be able to put aside the fact that the main character has murdered hundreds/thousands of people, ended families, and I am supposed to ignore that fact due to the plea that Dale did not know any better.  As much as I may like this novel, that is a hard thing to get my head around, it would seem that even with my fictional associates I require a bit of humanity, plus stupidity is not usually an acceptable excuse for mass murder but that is where this novel tries to lead us.OK, let us move on, the story of Dale is actually a heartbreaking story of lost love, life unfulfilled and evil influence.  He does present a pitiful character (which he actually is) and our beloved characters from the previous books take pity on him and put him on the road to redemption.  I think the fact that the  road did not really seem that difficult to follow but only required a bit of mental effort and self control makes the seeming mental torture of Dale from his life of killing seem less than true to me.  I mean in all those years he never tried to control himself, took an obvious psychopath’s word for everything and never tried to change anything?  My ability to suspend my belief system suffered with this one.This novel does have an excellent ending and it does tie up some loose ends from the previous book but the fact that it requires the reader to ignore so much of Dale’s previous decades of killing does not come across well for me and at times the writing was a bit wooden.  I am giving it 4 Stars mainly for the wrap-up and the story that readers will love if they can set his previous life aside.  I found this to be my least favorite of the three novels in this series.Reviewed by:  Douglas C. MeeksMember of the Paranormal Romance Review Team