Thunderbird (4) (Miriam Black)

Chuck Wendig sneaks a lot of psychological reality into his urban fantasy series featuring Miriam Black, a damaged young woman with a tragic past that has left her with the ability to see how people will die by touching them. Miriam is a better person than she gives herself credit for being and tries to save the innocent and the hapless and in so doing found that the scales of the universe demand balance and only death pays for life. If she wants to save a life she has to take a life. This is easy in theory when a person is going to be murdered for instance, the murderer can take the place of the victim in the great beyond, but theory and practice are miles apart and the road to hell is paved with good intentions and Miriam often finds that one fix leads to the need for another. Miriam also discovered that she can warg into birds when the chips are really down.

In this, the fourth outing for Miriam, she is on the trail of a mysterious woman who could lift her death seer's curse from her and take her out of play in the universal battle between good and evil. Miriam is almost sure that she wants this, but self-hatred and guilt and past trauma dogs her every step and the potential and actual death of innocents adds ever more to her burden of rage, despair and grief. Thunderbird brings familiar secondary characters Louis and Gabby back and bits of back story explaining the mythology are artfully inserted. In addition to these favorites, add a militia of American terrorists, some with psychic gifts, a gifted boy sought by the militia and an imminent attack that Miriam hopes to stop. Both quests come together in harrowing ways for Miriam and satisfying ways for the reader.

The urban fantasy and struggle between good and evil with flawed characters is wonderful, but it is Miriam Black that really makes this series stand out. Miriam is a woman damaged by dysfunction and tragedy and riddled with self-hatred yet still seeks healing and goodness - often against her will. This is where Wendig sneaks the realism in because aren't so many of us struggling to escape our past, our pain and our peccadillos? Miriam grows in Thunderbird.

Wendig sets up the next book of the series without leaving us clawing at the cliff's edge; Thunderbird is a self-contained book with the seeds of the next planted in the last few pages. I will be pre-ordering Book 5 as I have with all the Miriam books after the first. Miriam Black is Wendig's strongest series and I wish it had become a Starz Original - ahead of Gaiman even as Miriam is a character familiar to our deepest emotions but original on the page. A stellar outing for Wendig.

Although so far my favorite book is The Cormorant, this book didn't disappoint. The Miriam Black series is never a disappointment. I can not wait to see what is coming next.

Loved it! Miriam continues to evolve as a character through the books, so it not just the same old same old with different settings. There is movement within and between books in the series. Miriam is not necessarily someone you want to know in real life, but you will care about her just the same.