After meeting Al and his Ink and Sigil work that’s part of the Iron Druid world, I was geeked to dive back into a new Al MacBharrais adventure this time in the land Down Under.  Kevin Hearne writes entertaining and exciting characters and plots in a well-crafted urban fantasy world. 

 

Paper & Blood is the second in a connected Urban Fantasy trilogy that is a spinoff to the Iron Druid Chronicles.  It really does work best when read in order including the entire Iron Druid books. 

 

Al gets an alarming call from a fellow Sigil agent’s apprentice.  Her mistress is missing and so is the nearby sigil agent who went searching for her already.  Al has to go to Australia to start where the incident happened, but he’s not going alone.  Al drags Buck the hobgoblin along and plans to solicit the help of the Iron Druid who is in the area tracking down another outburst of supernatural phenomena disrupting Gaia.  But, it’s Al after all so he ends up with a few other surprising helpers along the way. 

 

Meanwhile, Al knows he has to give due thought to who put the curses on him because Buck’s life is in acute danger while the curses are in play.   He gets some hints about the curses and learns something interesting about his mysterious receptionist Gladys who is not simply an efficient Canadian. 

 

I enjoyed the reunion with Atticus now calling himself Connor and his two dog pals Oberon and Starbuck.  Connor isn’t the main character, that is still Al, but he gets some significant page time including a couple of his old tales around the campfire and there is a raucous one from Buck.  

I settled into this book much easier than the first one.  I knew the score and the introductions are over, but the characters grew on me in the last book and that happened even more so here.  Al has a different way of going about things and it is his different thinking from the big bad immortals and magic users around him that wins me over so strongly. 

 

This was a rollicking urban fantasy adventure and I can’t wait to get to the last leg of the trilogy and hopefully get some answers to Al’s mysterious curse while having a good time with the whole gang of characters especially Al.