Blood on the Water

Blood on the Water (1992) P. N. Elrod

Okay. Now I’m starting to get frustrated. This is the second book with an unfinished story arc. It’s not quite as bad as the previous book, but it’s still frustrating.

Blood on the Water picks up immediately after the end of Fire in the Blood. And by immediately, I mean moments, not days. Vaughn Kyler is out to get Jack Fleming–and by get, I mean kill. Jack’s first goal is to get Bobbi to safety; his second goal is to square things with Kyler.

This story spans a 24 hour period–a period during which Jack is dead to the world for several of those hours. And at the end of the 24 hours, Jack is out of his current dilemma, but things are really no better, and nothing has truly been resolved.

And that’s the crux of my problem. Next to nothing has been resolved. Jack is still in danger, and there is no resolution in sight. This series started out along the lines of a hard boiled mystery, and in the first four books they read like a mystery–a problem is presented and resolved in a single book. There is the underlying arc of Jack learning more about his condition, but that’s fine, since the characters have to continue to grow through the series. But Blood on the Water refuses to resolve the story begun in Fire in the Blood, and the focus becomes more and more upon Jack and his powers and issues. Charles and Bobbi are much more in the background–in fact we barely see Bobbi at all. And the worrisome changes we see in Charles in the previous book are hardly mentioned, except in passing.

Essentially, this book frustrated the heck out of me, and I’m really hoping that the next book resolves this current story arc, and that she sticks to single book story arcs from here on out. If you have no read a book in The Vampire Files series, this is definitely not the place to start. My recommendation would be to start at the first book, and read through Art in the Blood. I’ll let you know whether it’s worth it to continue on after that.
Rating: 5/10

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