Deadbeat Druid

Deadbeat Druid (2022) David R. Slayton (Adam Binder)

This is the third book in the Adam Binder series, and unlike book two, does not end on a cliff-hanger.

I’ll be honest, I was reading with a eye on the percent done, worried I’d get another cliffhanger. Luckily, it ended cleanly.

This might be the final book in the series–everything was wrapped up–and I’d be okay with that. I really enjoyed the world and the characters, but if there isn’t another book, I won’t feel like something is terribly missing.

At the end of the previous book Vic disappeared, and now Adam is setting out to find him.

“What’s in the bags?” he asked Bobby.

“Everything else I could think of,” Bobby said, hefting up the duffels. “First aid kit. Road flares. Guns. Bullets. Knives. Socks.”

Whether he wants him or not, his brother is coming.

So Adam, his brother, and a third all head off.

It wasn’t like the road curved downward, an endless off-ramp with convenient flashing arrows that read this way to hell!

We also get to see Hell from Vic’s point of view, and watch as their paths slowly lead towards one another.

“It’s more like webbing,” he said. “Spiders?” Adam asked. He’d read enough fantasy novels that he did not want to confront anything that could throw webs across an entire landscape. The only question was if millions of little ones would be worse than several giant ones.

With, of course, plenty of bad stuff happening, since it is hell.

He wasn’t dead or numb, but how much of himself was tied into what he’d felt, how much of who he’d become? Without those pains, those feelings or experiences, would he be the same man?

This book goes surprisingly deep into ethical and moral decisions, from the morality of taking another life to the incredibly difficulty of forgiveness.

Adam couldn’t forgive (person). He couldn’t forget, but given time, he could let go.

One thing I especially liked was their meeting someone who has been out of time for 100 years.

“Well we still have all that,” Vic said. “And some new stuff. Some of it’s awesome, like the Internet. Some things are kind of awful too though.”

“Like what?”

“Like the Internet,” he said.

Parts (like that) are amusing, but it’s also a reminder of just how much the world has changed in the last entury, and how alien everything would be to someone from that time.

I enjoyed this book, like how it wrapped up the story arc, and if we get another book, I’ll be pleased, but if we don’t get another book, I hope he gives us another story set in this world

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Rating: 8/10

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