4 Stars for Candice Fox's Hades

Review: 

Candice Fox’s Hades is an interesting twist in Crime Fiction, one that turns good cop to bad leaving the reader surprisingly sympathetic to evil. It reminds me of Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter. The Dexter book hooked me in the first paragraph, first because of the genius way the serial killer Dexter is first implanted in the reader’s mind, second the writing is fantastic.

         “And the Need was very strong now, careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready…it made me wait and watch.

I had been waiting for the priest for five weeks now.”

The use of alliteration is better than Peter Piper, no pause in the need – to kill. Right away, you know Dexter will kill himself a priest. But, why? And better, why does he have this need? For anyone whose watched Dexter, you’ll know there’s a great reason for that.

Now, back to Fox’s Hades, she proposed that same kind of mystery in her story; however, I don’t think it was as fleshed out as it could have been. The reason was there, and it was good, but not great as in the Dexter book. There the reason exploded in all its gory detail, and in it Dexter was our hero, odd but true. I didn’t come out of Hades finding a hero, just a lot of lost souls. I'm a girl that likes a hero, someone to root for.

         First, the character of Hades felt like a deep, dark shadow with no real face, and I thought he had the most potential to be interesting. Fox’s set-up of him was interesting, but I would have liked to see more into what made him tick, not just a glimpse of his childhood but a deep probing. I never really understood his need to help young Eden and Eric other than he didn’t kill innocents. Eric came across as just a stereotypical bully, sadistically psycho, sure, but nothing too mind blowing. Eden was interesting, but like Hades I wish I could have seen more, maybe even before of who she was before meeting Hades. Overall, the three of these characters competed with a fourth character, Frank. Frank was the primary perspective the story was told in. Frank was a typical cop with a history of being unreliable and selfish. His character made an unusual turn towards heroic at one point, where I started to like him a little, then he did something at the very end of the story that simply said there was no changing this guy. He was always going to pursue his own interest which meant chasing down Eric and Eden’s secrets rather than protect those that needed protecting. Frank started selfish and ended that way for me.  I wish someone else had told me the story, maybe Hades.

         In the end, I will say the double plot worked. The serial killer Frank chased never felt like it was competing with his need to find out more about Eden and Eric. The ending was predictable, but for a good vengeance story, and serial killer story this is what I expected. Hades was a fast read, with a neat ‘Desterish’ premise that I would recommend. It’s worth your time if your into a good crime story, with a serial killer, and some messed-up cops looking for vengeance, Hades is your cup of Joe, dark roast no vanilla, thata be your hero.