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Mareritt: The Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files

Krisi Keley

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Jun 07, 2013 Werner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, supernatural-fiction

I had the privilege of beta reading this outstanding series opener, from a free electronic copy sent to me by the author, last month (of course, I've kept it in hard copy!); and I can review it on that basis, since the finished version didn't require any substantive changes, just some correction of typos, etc. Krisi Keley won a place in my roster of favorite authors with her very first novel, On the Soul of a Vampire, so I had high expectations for this book; and they were more than realized!

The I had the privilege of beta reading this outstanding series opener, from a free electronic copy sent to me by the author, last month (of course, I've kept it in hard copy!); and I can review it on that basis, since the finished version didn't require any substantive changes, just some correction of typos, etc. Krisi Keley won a place in my roster of favorite authors with her very first novel, On the Soul of a Vampire, so I had high expectations for this book; and they were more than realized!

The Goodreads description (which I think Krisi wrote) of the premise is accurate. Our P.I. protagonist, Tobias Berger (pronounced in French fashion with a silent "r," rather than like "burger" --his father's French Canadian) is hired at the outset to investigate whether the close-call accidents high school senior Samantha Lovell and two of her close friends have recently experienced are really accidental, and whether they're related to the possibly drug-caused coma that the other member of their close-knit foursome now lies in. But the reader quickly finds that the short, swiftly-reading chapters setting forth this contemporary mystery are interspersed with another plot strand: equally short, quick-flowing chapters describing the out-of-body, lucid but slightly surreal dreaming experiences of a young princess (I pictured her as being in a little German principality in the 18th century, though the word "medieval" is used later), whose situation embodies aspects of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. You may wonder how these two strands are related to each other; but trust me, they are! More than meets the eye is going on here, as Tobias soon comes to suspect; there are layers of dark secrets which need to come to the light --and maybe a touch of something at work that's outside the realm of "natural" explanations.

Mareritt is every bit as good a read as the first two books of the On the Soul series (the third one, Genesis, is still to be completed, but eagerly awaited!), but they have a slightly different flavor. Being set mostly in the present (Tobias' home town of Elk Grove, like Krisi's own, is a suburb of Philadelphia), and not having an 800-year-old protagonist, it has a more modern, less Gothic feel. The dialogue is contemporary; even the parts featuring the dreaming princess, while they convey a sense of the old-time past, don't sound archaic. And while some characters here have their share of baggage and angst, they don't live under the pervasive pall of gloom that the vampire protagonist of the On the Soul series does. This book is a quicker read, and the philosophical themes feel less heavy. They're still there, though; Tobias is no plaster saint, but he is a believing and practicing Roman Catholic Christian, as is the author, and the role of his faith in how he looks at the events here is woven in seamlessly and naturally. (At one point, he explains the state of the dead in terms of the Catholic belief in Purgatory; but even staunch Protestant readers will find his view of Purgatory more plausible and less off-putting than, say, Dante's.) And Keley's style is still literate, with a classic (and classy) feel to it; where some modern writers' prose is like cheap hamburger, hers is more like steak.

All the characters are well-drawn, and Tobias and Sam are easy to like. The girls' situation commands your sympathy from the start, and you'll quickly be drawn into the story with all sorts of questions that you want answers for, NOW! (Readers who can might read non-stop until they get them!) Rest assured, the answers will come; the plot here fits together as perfectly and tightly as an interlocked jigsaw puzzle, and like the best puzzles, when it's complete it's a thing of artistic beauty. Personally, I was captivated with this one from page 1; there's no aspect of the author's craftsmanship I didn't like, and whenever I had to stop reading, I was always eager to get back into it. This would be a great read for both adults and teens; there's no bad language, violence, or sex --though the secrets that need to be unraveled may involve sex. It's also true that while the 10-year age difference between Tobias and Sam (she's 17 when the tale opens, but turns 18 some time later) and the professional relationship between them should, to Tobias' mind, preclude mutual attraction, there IS an attraction there --and not only on Sam's side. (If that would be a major problem for you, you shouldn't read the book; it wasn't for me. Sam's a young woman, not a child; and Tobias' conduct is strictly honorable.) Bottom line: I'm happily hooked for the whole series! ...more

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