The Fury and the Power

The Fury and the Power
By John Farris
For the second book in the series, we meet up with Eden in Africa with Tom Sherard and supermodel Bertie Nkambe. Eden is being taught (by Bertie) how to develop her powers, and decompressing from the ordeal she has just been through. Her adoptive mother (Betts) was planning to visit, until she is kidnapped by (our old friend) the crossdressing assassin and forced to lure Eden home.
Eden goes home to help Betts, whom Eden thinks is in the hospital from a stroke, and sends her doppelganger to Rome with Tom and Bertie. A rash of murders has been taking place on prominent religious figures, so the crew travels to Rome to consult with the Pope. In Rome, Eden’s doppelganger (who wants to be called Gwen) meets up with Lincoln Grayle, a magician who had a romantic interest in Eden while in Africa. Gwen is soon kidnapped, leaving Tom and Bertie to deal with the evil on their own. The novel keeps its hasty pace as we follow Tom and Bertie fighting the “bad guys” and trying to get to the root of the problem. Eden once again battles with the cross dressing assassin, and ultimately finds herself in Las Vegas. In the final pages, we get a satisfying showdown between good and evil and a few twists involving some other characters from the book. Farris leaves us hanging on, waiting for the next book to find out what is going to happen with the protagonists.
I thought this book was well done, and interesting. The author did a good job of further developing the characters and leading us through the plot. Some old friends made new appearances, and new conflicts (major and minor) were exposed. I was disappointed by a few elements of the story, however. I thought that some of the characters were dispatched prematurely. I was unsatisfied since we had been given sufficient information to get to know them, and then they were then absent from the story. This occurred with both ancillary, and more important characters (recurring from previous books). In addition, I thought that the “bad guy” could have been more developed. We weren’t given a great deal of background into where they come from, motivation, etc. Some indirect references are all we are left with to try and understand a world that is much different from any construct we have. Overall this book was satisfying, if only to continue to find out what happened to the characters who had now already taken up some 700+ pages of my time. However, I did not enjoy this book as much as the first (The Fury) or as the previous book (The Fury and the Terror).
Rating: 3.5/5 Bunsen Burners
Up Next: Avenging Fury by John Farris