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Book Review of King's Cure (Fanuilh, Bk 5)

King's Cure (Fanuilh, Bk 5)
King's Cure (Fanuilh, Bk 5)
Author: Daniel Hood
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
cyndij avatar reviewed on + 1031 more book reviews


SPOILERS AHEAD YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. The fifth and final book in the Fanuilh series. I don't think Hood meant this to be the end as there's nothing in the story that can be read as a conclusion. And it's a rather light plot which doesn't show Liam Rhenford at his best. He travels to Torquay to supposedly look at new trade routes, and in the process deliver a little package to a friend of the Duke's. But the friend hands him off to someone else, and then all hell breaks loose. Liam is on the run, accused of two murders, and the Peacekeepers seem to know his every move as soon as he makes it.
That's most of the book. Liam doesn't really try to reason his way out of his predicament, he just lurches from one narrow escape to the next, relying on Fanuilh to keep watch. The little package, which turns out to be a legendary magic potion that will cure the King, is a hot item since there are plenty of conspirators who don't want the KIng to live. Liam takes a sip of it, and it's great, but when he finally does get it to somebody who gets it to the King, it doesn't work because the King was poisoned. We learn this in a couple paragraphs toward the end - the denouement was rather anticlimatic. Everything Liam went through was for nothing, presumably the only good thing was that the poisoner was found out.
Maybe it's a metaphor for life - we scramble about doing the best we can without knowing who's with us or against us, and in the end it's all the same no matter what we do. That's kind of bleak. Well, I liked the series for the most part.