Echoes of the Past (Demon Squad, #4)

Echoes of the Past by Tim Marquitz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Every time I get my hands on a new Demon Squad book, it feels a lot like Christmas. Admittedly, it’s a dirty Christmas, full of drunken groping and inappropriate comments, but it’s Christmas nevertheless. It is not often that urban fantasy is written and delivered with such boldness and abandon – Tim Marquitz does not only overstep the lines of good taste, he completely ignores them and then he laughs in your shocked face. And I love it.

Where is God now? I guess we’ve all asked ourselves that question at some point in our lives, some of us every day even, but when Frank asks, he actually hopes to get an answer. God has been missing, or rather, he left us to fend for ourselves, and to make matters more interesting, Lucifer has done the same. Two armies with no one strong enough to lead them are a sure recipe for disaster, but with a few more hostile universes in the mix, the Earth has very little hope of survival.

Enter Frank Trigg, Lucifer’s reckless nephew. After a long period of silence, his uncle sent him a message warning him about God’s old creations, all bigger and more powerful than us. Trigg is supposed to gather his allies and come up with strategies to defend Earth. But what makes him so special? Why should he carry this weight on his shoulders? To answer that, he’ll have to take a long, hard look into his past and maybe even kill an angel or two in the process.

This time around, Frank gave a whole new meaning to the word underdog. Nobody wanted him around for too long and there were far too many people (I use the term loosely here) trying to kill him. When you add to that a few shocking revelations about his family’s history, it’s no wonder I had the urge to hug him and comfort him just a teeny tiny bit (although he’d probably grab my butt or something, dirty bastard that he is, and then I’d have to shoot him with his own gun… not that he ever gets to keep it for long anyway).

The beginning of Echoes of the Past was a little bit rough for me. I was just getting comfortable in the Demon Squad universe, and suddenly there were more universes to consider, more powers, more creatures, more everything. It was all too much too fast and it took me a while to adjust, but the second half more than made up for it. In it, Marquitz showed that he’s not afraid to add layers to his main character. The emotional depth he showed, the seriousness with which he approached certain subjects while keeping Frank true to himself stunned me. It made me forget about the first half. It even made me less grumpy about the cliffhanger. I’ll always put character development first and that part was done perfectly.

It’s too early to start thinking about book 5, but I can’t help it, not after that cliffhanger, and I’m excited and terrified in equal amounts. I don’t know what’s coming next for poor Frank, but I’m sure it won’t be pretty.