Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo Arrived Just in Time for Halloween (book review)
STOP, this book is the third and final book in a trilogy. Check out my reviews for the first two books here:
Ninth House (book 1): https://www.haleysbookhaven.com/post/a-review-of-ninth-house-by-leigh-bardugo
Hell Bent (book 2): https://www.haleysbookhaven.com/post/hell-bent-by-leigh-bardugo-book-review
GENRE: Adult Urban Fantasy
LENGTH: 475 pages
PLOT
The door to hell was left open at the end of book 2, allowing demons to escape into the human world. Alex, Darlington, and the group must find a way to close it or risk literal eternal hell on earth.
CHARACTERS
The main characters all return in this book including Alex, Darlington, Turner, Dawes, and Tripp. The only character who has really changed is Tripp, since in the last book his soul was consumed by a demon and he turned into a vampire. Although, he's really not all that different in terms of his bumbling, bubbly personality.
This is a minor spoiler, but in this book the gentleman of Leithe and our scrappy survivor finally get together. The romantic tension between Darlington and Alex has been in the undercurrent of the entire series. I know many readers will be happy to see them acting on those unspoken feelings at long last.
Alex did frustrate me some in this book because there was something she needed to do to help the group succeed, but she was reluctant to do it. I understand it was uncomfortable, but girl, come on, it's to prevent the apocalypse.
There are several antagonistic characters that our main characters are fighting against to save the world. There is Galgarot (a demon prince and personal enemy of Alex), and Linus Reiter, a powerful (in both connections and physical abilities) vampire. Reiter is nothing like Tripp, he's really an outlier with most vampires being evil.
The final antagonist is a human one - and isn't the message of so many stories, that the real monsters were the humans all along? He is Alban Reed, the Leithe board president.
WRITING As with the prior novels, this one is told via the third person perspectives of Alex and Darlington and includes excerpts from Leithe texts.
My main concern with this book was that the ending would feel too rushed. That has been my gripe with so many fantasy series - the author gets to the final book and spends the last fifty pages scrambling to tie up all the loose ends. I was pleasantly surprised with the pacing, however. Nothing felt like it was wrapped up too quickly and neatly.
I found the fates of all the characters I've come to care for to be satisfying, I believe many others readers will as well.
FINAL THOUGHTS I began reading this series in pre-COVID days as the first book was published all the way back in 2019. There was a multiple year gap between each release. I must confess that I forgot about this book's release date until the week it came out. That isn't because I wasn't excited to finally have the finale in my hands, but rather a consequence of stretching out a series. Readers may move onto other series after they grow tired of waiting. I do still think that this book was worth the wait, though. It's one of the strongest fantasy finales I've read to date.
FINAL RATING: 4.75⭐️