Booklog 93/2024: Marshall Ryan Maresca: The Imposters of Aventil – Maradaine, Thorn #3

[jacey]

Perhaps I should have started with the first Thorn book, but having read a couple of other Maradaine books I thought I’d be OK with this one, however it’s probably not a great entry point for the Thorn books. There were a lot of secondary characters that I didn’t know as well as the author expected me to.  I really like Marshall Ryan Maresca’s writing in general. I loved The Holver Alley Crew, and I’d read one of the Maradaine Constabulary books which featured Minox Welling and Satrine Rainey, who reappear here, so I wasn’t entirely in the dark. It’s a bit slow to get going and all the minor characters get viewpoint scenes, which I found distracted me. Veranix Calvert is the Thorn – a vigilante sworn to crack a drug ring. When two unconnected imposters (which I always thought was spelled impostors, but apparently both are correct) suddenly appear on the streets of Aventil, leaving death in their wake, the Thorn becomes the focus of police attention. Enter Welling and Rainey. Veranix is split between the drug problem and the double-impostor problem. The pace picks up towards the end and there is a good finale and a nice wrap-up.