The Myth Hunters

Reviewed: January 1, 2008
By: Christopher Golden
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
416 pages, $8.99

I picked up The Myth Hunters because I’d read some of Golden’s t.v. novelizations and some of his work in comic books, and because the cover copy was slightly misleading. The Myth Hunters in this case are a cadre of supernatural beings who are hunting down and killing myths, at least the ones that are capable of making the border crossing through the Veil between our world and theirs.

For Oliver Bascombe the strangeness begins on the night before his wedding, when he suddenly finds himself face to face with Jack Frost, and on the run from a myth killer called the Falconer. Since the killer has seen Oliver and will kill him to cover up his activities in our world, Frost takes Bascombe with him into the lands of faerie and legend, where Oliver begins a strange quest to find out why the Borderkind have been targeted by the forces of dark magic.

Homicide detective Ted Halliwell is drawn into the story when Oliver goes missing and his father is found brutally murdered with his eyes plucked out, the first in a series of brutal crimes that Halliwell is assigned to solve. Soon another membersof the Bascombe family goes missing and other mutilated corpses begin to appear, first in the United States and then, with identical mutilations, around the world.

Strangely, there are sightings of Oliver in some of these locations, and finding the missing Bascombe heir seems to be the best chance of getting a handle on the case. In a deal struck between his superior officer and Bascombe’s company Halliwell finds himself partnered with Julianna, Oliver’s erstwhile fiancee, and chief investigator for Bascombe & Cox, in a race to find Oliver and his missing sister before it is too late.

Meanwhile, Oliver and his companions, Jack Frost and a shape-shifing were-fox named Kitsune, travel through Faerie and also in our world trying to end the murder spree of the recently freed Sandman.

And that, maddeningly, is where the tale ends, because it turns out that this book is part of a series and has at least two sequels that I am now aware of. The Borderkind will soon be out in paperback and The Lost Ones is being published in trade size this month. I’m intrigued by this combination of supernatural quest story and murder mystery and will probably pick up at least one more volume to see where it goes.

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