Shepherding Souls
Shepherding Souls
By Vincent Valentean
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
I don’t dislike Jacob Shepherd. He seems like a well-grounded guy trapped in a very unstable professional and social environment. It does not get more unstable and insincere than Hollywood. He’s no Michael Merlyn, but who is? The fact that Valentean has made the decision to connect these two character is really exciting for me. I also find that Shepherd being the Merlyn team’s angel investor to be fantastic. It’s like he’s making up for all of the deception that he himself has been perpetrating on his audience. Having the talent of being able to cold read people well can be beneficial. I mean let’s face it, even if what he is telling someone about a loved one that has passed is not true they can still get peace from this. They can still gain closure so it’s not all bad. The debate of if it is exploitative is I think a matter of degree, specific to the situation and dependent on the intent of the cold reader. I think that Jacob’s intent is nothing more than bringing people peace, at least at this point in his life, and to take care of his daughter. Who happens to be a relatively powerful medium, and she’s only 9.
Michael could be less of a dick to Shepherd. I understand why he feels the way that he does but despite what Shepherd does, he is no con man out to dupe people out of their money. He legitimately sees what he does as a service. Not being sensitive, he cannot sense or see the spirits that may or may not surround the living he is comforting. And while there is more to helping the bereaved for Michael that’s not true for those that are not sensitive. Plus in the Merlyn universe not all mediums can do what he does so there’s that too. I believe Shepherd cares very deeply for those that he helps he just doesn’t know the full scope of how to help (and I’m almost positive that he would if he could). Michael is being a dick…a big pulsating, flatulent dick and quite frankly he needs to get the fuck over himself. Quite frankly as it stands right now, I want to punch him in the face. I’d imagine this is true for all that have had the pleasure of being around him for any length of time. That’s a lot of black eyes.
There’s always an interesting adversary in these books. It seems to me that they are dealing with a cult. A cult that apparently extends its reach into the LAPD. I find dirty cops to be particularly infuriating. In fact, I think they should be put into general pop and backs turned (would not want to clean up after that). Since it seems that the cops have been infiltrated I’m beginning to feel that this situation has political stank all over it. I can feel it in my mind nose!
Yup political stank but in an indirect way. Political stanks son. Who is exactly as you would think him to be. A snotty, hubris, know-it-all, thinks his shit doesn’t smell, temper tantrum throwing, God complexed piece of donkey dung that has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. This dude oozes ego like an infection. Shit the little fucker is an infection. I have no time for people like this. You think drug dealers and thieves are bad…they ain’t got nothin’ on the children of privilege. Hubris is the mark of a sociopath. It’s something that they all have in common, in abundance and this guy takes the cake. He’s a real ponce. The team was a little off the mark on this one. They almost had it but fell short of figuring out the responsible party. One good thing that came out of this was Michael finally was kind to Shepherd. I mean he damn well better be considering he save his bacon along with the entire worlds bacon. Oh and those two dirty cops got what was coming to them. At the very least they are working a desk due to their inability to do field work because of injury, at best they were given “early retirement”.
Closing thoughts:
Up to the required standard for sure. I was really excited for this particular book. So far the Michael Merlyn series of books have flowed together beautifully, bringing in other characters seamlessly. You can tell that they are well thought out. Yes there are some errors, particularly the spelling of Dyson which is misspelled in a couple of places as Bryson. In addition, some times you will see Kassidy spelled with a C. I think these errors have more to do with the text being translated into an e-book format than anything (and really your mind can make the necessary adjustments anyhow).
Now let’s talk about the introduction of a character that seems to be a budding arch nemesis. One that Michael does not even know he has. I can’t stand politicians in general but this guy is the personification of what the roll had turned into. Essentially he’s a demon. I don’t know what entity he has residing within but the asshole is definitely no longer human (I mean let’s be honest, it’s debatable if any politicians actually are human. They are all definitely sociopaths to some degree, at least in their current standing). I think it will be interesting to see how things unfold in future. This is something that has now been set up so we know that Valentean is going to use it but the question is, where is he going to take it? I suppose we shall see!
