A Proper Hellhound has some good moments. First, it’s a Montague and Strong short story featuring Peaches, the black hole of meat consumption, aka the hellhound pup, son of Cerebus and gift from Hades. Author Orlando Sanchez has a hit with Peaches, one of his most endearing characters and one that lets his human bond mate, Simon Strong co-star.
On the other hand, Sanchez continues developing Simon Strong into a whiny, clueless null character, a most irritating development that was evident in the last couple novels (especially the latest, Dragons and Demigods) and a development that I hope he abandons quickly. Here’s an example. Simon asks for a weapon; Ezra tells him that he and Peaches are the weapon and Simon says “What does that mean?” C’mon. Simon is supposedly a super lethal ex-New York Task Force member, the supernatural equivalent to Special Forces, and he does not understand how he plus his mega lethal hellhound are a weapon? Heck, I understood it!
Simon stumbles through Peaches’ training session, never quite understanding that what he is doing and what he is learning is the training. He fights off several baddies, saves his dog (and his dog saves him) and still doesn’t realize that he plus Peaches can do almost anything.
The other thing that’s beginning to annoy me about these books is the number of new secondary characters thrown in while older ones simply fade away. Some of the older ones were pretty interesting, well worth a few more paragraphs, while some of the new ones, such as TK Tush and LD Tush, would be better forgotten because they are too self-centered to play nicely in the M&S sandbox. Ezra is one of the best side characters from prior novels and I was glad to see him return.
To sum up: One the plus side we have a Peaches-centric story that moves fast with the usual dollop of Simon’s mayhem and favorite side character Ezra makes a return cameo. On the minus side Simon continues his descent back into clueless adolescence. Ugh.
3 Stars
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