Bookburners Episode Three: Fair Weather

Fair Weather by Margaret Dunlap, Bookburners #3

The Team saves on flight costs as the newest mystery happens around the corner. A tip from a local antiquarian doesn’t make it to the Team in time and they are left with a once-bookstore-now-rubble-pile, a missing magical tome, and very few clues beyond a helpful tour guide (one might even say too helpful…). Tracking the missing book to a luxury yacht, the Team gets less of the high-end boating experience and more of the demon-on-the-loose nightmare. All aboard the Fair Weather; but no smooth sailing ahead.

After two very strong episodes we have come to the third episode of Bookburners where Brian Francis Slattery has given the reigns to Margaret Dunlap introducing her first addition to the Bookburners series.

As with the stories of Max Gladstone, which introduced the concept of the Bookburners and that of Brian Francis Slattery, which greatly build on the story of Max Gladstone. The first story showed demonic posession and the second on how a book could influence a small enclosed part of the world. In Fair Weather, Margaret Dunlap takes it up a notch more! As I already mentioned the world proposed in Bookburners has unlimited possibilities and this is precisely what is shown, so far we have seen direct influences, in Fair Weather, there is the small and subtle way of how a book can influence the world. For now onto the story!

Sally has been properly inaugurated into Team Three of the Bookburners, having survived the ordeal with her brother and the flat that turned into a fantasy world. Not long after returning back to Rome another job is waiting for the Team to investigate. Luckily or perhaps unluckily the Team doesn't have to travel long, a bookshop just around the corner is the crime scene. Luckily for the team they are soon pointed in a right direction and once they get to the a bit of an unusual place. The book is on a very luxurious yacht called Fair Weather. But everything is far from fair. The book in question hasn't been opened yet, however this doesn't imply that a book can't influence it's surrounding as describe by earlier historical events... Because once the spine if damaged in any way the demonic powers of the book can slowly seep out and actually cause much more havoc that bluntly opening the book. 

The ending of this episode is just as cool as the whole build up. It seems that Team Three isn't the only player in the game! Curious to see who Aaron is and to who he belongs to.