BooksOfTheMoon

Gobbelino and Callum’s adventures come to an end with an appropriate bang in this final book in the series. Old friends and enemies make an appearance, the duo (okay, trio – can’t forget Green Snake) are left to rely only on their own resources, and there’s an apocalyptic finale, where practically everyone from the series plays their part (my personal favourite is Tristan’s OAP army). Secrets are revealed, friendships made and solidified and Gobs remembers some of his mysterious past while Callum reveals more of his.

I enjoyed this final book in the series. It’s a decent capstone to everything that went before, pulling together a whole bunch of different plot threads and characters from previous books. Given the kind of book, and kind of series this is, the end was never really in doubt, but there was a lot of drama along the way, as every ally and contact that the duo have made throughout the series gets stripped away, before the final act Big Boss fight.

There’s a set of four short stories that are available for free that follow on from the book, forming a series of epilogues. I can see why Watt decided to split those off, but I think it would have worked as part of the book itself, but maybe that would have led to the Lord of the Rings style “too many endings” problem.

Watt does say that Gobs and Callum may return in the future, and I hope that they do, they’re a fun pair and I’ve come to care about them and their various found family.

The penultimate Gobbelino London book moves the action from Leeds to Whitby, to which Gobs and Callum flee after the events of the previous book, where Gobs was nearly sucked into the Inbetween by something in their flat. The sea air hasn’t been as relaxing as they’d hoped though. Despite getting employment on a pirate themed cruise ship popular with hen and stag parties, they can’t keep out of things. They run into their friend Emma who tells them that Gertrude (aka Reaper Leeds) has disappeared. Things escalate from there, to include Black Dogs, Kraken-worshipping rats, merfolk (although they’re always referred to as mermaids, even the male ones), non-binary parrots, and sea witches.

The Watch reappear and once again makes an attempt on Gobs’ life. Honestly, it makes me wonder if pre-emptively drowning all cats, just to make sure that we can get rid of the Watch, is such a bad idea. This organisation is thoroughly rotten to the core, and we still have no idea why they’re harassing Gobs so much, having ended each of his previous lives.

The books are starting to feel quite serious now, and the whimsical touches from the past sits somewhat uncomfortably with that. Doily-loving grim reapers, cross-dressing trolls, and theatrical pirate captains feel at odds with apocalypses, drug-running, and extra-judicial attempted killings. I’ve enjoyed this whole series, this book being no exception, and I really hope that Watt can stick the landing in the final book.

The fifth book of Gobbelino and Callum’s adventures focus on werewolves. Or ‘weres’ as the book insists on calling them, even though there’s no evidence of any other were-creatures than dogs/wolves. Ms Jones, the sorcerer that everyone is so afraid of, has gone missing, leaving just a message with Gobs to ensure that her boyfriend, the dentist Malcolm Walker, is safe. Which would be fine, except that he’s gone missing.

What follows is more ramping up of tension, lots of running around getting into scrapes as the intrepid PI and his human do their usual bumbling around. This time, they’re accompanied by two of the cats rescued in the previous book – Pru and Tam – who get to watch the PI process in real time bemusement. Oh, and there’s Green Snake, who seems to be better at actually detecting than either of his partners.

It does feel like we’re building up to something here, as the Watch are seeming ever more corrupt, and the one Watch-cat they can trust, Claudia, is still missing in action. There’s also the magician, Ifan, and what he’s up to and the possibility that necromancers are still around, and maybe working with the Watch.

This book ends with a sort of resolution and a partial cliffhanger as Gobs and Callum have to flee from Leeds. I’m looking forward to seeing what mischief G & C London can possibly get up to at the seaside.

Following on from the adventure with the unicorns, Callum and Gobbelino now find themselves engaged by a magician, but when they arrive, they find the house empty and an angry sorcerer in the walls. Worryingly, Claudia, Gobs’ contact in the Watch, has gone missing and it’s possible the necromancers who were involved in the plague of zombies from a few books back may be involved. G&C London to investigate!

While the mages may be in the title, it’s cats that take centre stage here, as Gobbelino and Callum poke around. Nine cats are needed for something occult, and there are nine here, including our favourite feline PI. Pru, the hairless cat from previous books reappears as do several others, including a cat who thinks he’s in the military because his humans are veterans, a pair of brothers who talk like they’re California surfer dudes and a silent she-cat big enough to scare a Cerberus. It’s a lot of new characters to get your head around (and that’s not to mention the new human characters too). The story feels a bit more cluttered as you try to keep on top of the different layers of plotting, but Watt manages to keep a through line for the important stuff, amongst the pensioners of the apocalypse, maybe-dead sons, and the continuous undertone of corruption in the Watch.

As always, the snarky cat voice and the clear love between Callum and Gobbelino are a joy to read. The author has recently put the whole series on Kindle Unlimited, so I’ll be binging the rest of it in quick succession, I think.

Gobbelino and Callum London are hanging out in a cemetery (for social, not work purposes). It’s all going swimmingly until a dog chases a stick and fetches an arm. From then on, Gobs and Callum are in a (hah!) cat and mouse game with the living dead. They need to find out who’s creating zombies and how to stop them.

This was a lot of fun, I like Gobbelino’s snarky tone. He acts all mercenary but he wouldn’t really walk away from someone in need. Not when Callum would spend the rest of the week giving him those big puppy eyes, anyway. We have several returning characters in this volume, as well as a number of new ones, the best of whom is Gertrude (aka Grim Reaper Leeds) who, when not reaping the souls of the dead, runs a pet café featuring baby ghouls with her partner Emma.

There’s a surprising amount of action in the book, especially the big sequence where the zombies overrun the market towards the end of the book which was tenser than I was expecting! We also get a glimpse into Callum’s history. Not much, but enough to contrast well with who he is now and to pull us into the story.

Also, if I distrusted the Watch in the first book, I out and out loathe them now. Claudia might be okay (for a peeler) but the rest of them are a good example of why we need to abolish the police!

Watt writes deliberately upbeat and cheerful stories. This is a great example of doing that really well, keeping a tight plot and exciting action at the same time. Just what I needed after a whole collection of really miserablist Rachel Swirsky stories!

Gobbelino London is a talking cat, something his human, Callum didn’t blink an eye at. Now they’re a PI team trying to eek out a living between the human and Fay worlds in Leeds and have a new case on their hands which will see them in somewhat more peril than they expect for a case that involves finding a missing book.

As much as I like whimsy and fluff, I found Watt’s Beaufort Scales books a little too twee for my tastes, but I enjoyed this an awful lot. While I’m much more a dog person than a cat person, who doesn’t love a snarky talking cat? Watt sketches out a surprising amount of world-building in a fairly short book, and left me with quite the unease at the Watch and some of their shadier practices.

This book told a satisfying story in its own right and also set up a bunch of stuff for future instalments. I liked Gobbelino and Callum, as well as the awesome Queen-Empress (or was it Empress-Queen?) of the rats, Susan. It was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely be picking up future volumes in the series soon.