Book Review
Peridot (Episode 1: Three Against The Mob) by Tyree Campbell (Hiraeth Press)
This novel is the first installment in the “Peridot” adventure novel series written by Tyree Campbell. The series is up to three books or “episodes” so far, Episode 1: Three Against the Mob, Episode 2: The Caesar Talisman and Episode 3: Avatar.
The main character is Patricia “Ricia” Ryder, a young American expatriate living off-the-grid in France. Without providing any spoiler details, we initially learn that Ricia had previously crossed paths with the ancient Celtic Goddess Sequana, who has endowed Ricia with superheroine-like powers in exchange for at-times doing her bidding. Ricia alternates between following the Goddess’s cryptic bidding in her super-powered “Peridot” guise and surviving in her civilian life by selling on the French black market ancient artifacts that Sequana leads her to.
The fast-paced plot hits the ground running at the novel’s start as Ricia’s adopted lifestyle shatters in a black market double-cross when she attempts to sell her latest Goddess-provided ancient artifact. At the same time, as Peridot, Ricia lands in a middle of a dilemma that threatens to expose her exotic identity to Stephanie Renaud, a young woman to whom Peridot has been cryptically sent to assist by the Goddess.
The story races through the French countryside and various towns as Ricia deftly juggles her civilian and superhero roles while interacting with her new friend Stephanie as well as potential love interest French Gendarme Inspector Henri Delarue, all the while being hunted by the French Mob as led by the vicious Mad Paul Spirito, who desires Ricia’s Goddess-provided artifacts at any cost.
This novel is an extremely entertaining action-adventure story blended with fantasy and superhero storytelling elements. I was prepared for a pure fantasy novel read but was pleasantly surprised by the underlying action-adventure fiction-telling structure of the book. Campbell clearly is schooled as both a reader and writer in the action thriller “characters-on-the-run” fiction genre and has chosen to write a series that carries that genre’s storytelling into the fantasy realm.
While the main strength of the plot is the fast-paced action-adventuring, three additional strong story elements are worth noting. The first is Campbell’s dialogue, which is as entertaining, crisp and logical for each character as any novel gets. The second is the novel’s immersion into the French culture and lifestyle. Knowing nothing about the author’s familiarity with France, I can only assume that he’s either spent enough time there or done enough research (or quite possibly both) to weave very realistic and enjoyable French elements into the storyline. And third is the author’s ability to steadily build the story’s tension and drama chapter-by-chapter, culminating in a satisfying cliffhanger of an ending that makes it worthwhile to move on to the second installment in the novel’s series to see where the further adventures of Ricia/Peridot, her friends and foes take us.
On a final review note, throughout my read of this book, I couldn’t help comparing it to acclaimed fantasy author George R.R. Martin’s very first novel “Dying Of The Light.” Both Martin and Campbell exhibit in these respective novels that same writing quality of layering a quality basic action-adventure-thriller of a tale with fantasy-science fiction elements. The common strengths of both books is that if those genre elements are stripped away, we readers would still be left with an engrossing and extremely entertaining thriller of a reading ride. And that’s saying a lot about any genre-based novel.
So in sum, this first novel in the Peridot series is a highly recommended read. Look for it wherever Hiraeth Press books are available. I for one plan on reading very soon the next two available installments in the Peridot novel series and possibly reviewing them for you in the future.
-Alan Ira Gordon