In Soul Taken, Briggs has delivered a smasher of a book that is fittingly spooky for the thirteenth outing for Mercy Thompson. It’s Halloween and the local cinema is showing a B horror movie based on the local legend of a mythical figure called The Harvester. In true Mercy style, there’s of course more than a little truth to the local legend and Mercy and the pack soon find themselves right in the middle of things. It’s not just them this time though; one of the vampires is missing.

It’s Wulfe, one vampire that Mercy and her allies never know what to expect nor the true scope of his powers. He’s a wildcard, and to make matters worse, the leader of the vampires has given the pack an ultimatum; find him or there will be war with the vampires. Marsilia’s strange ultimatum isn’t the only thing that doesn’t make sense, and as Mercy and the Pack start to look into things they find even more questions.

Soul Taken dips a bit more into the horror genre than previous books, and mixing it with the pop culture of horror movies takes the edge off it for readers who might not like their books that dark. It also allows for some excellent conversations with Jessie and Mercy on the subject. The world-building of this book was delicious, and I enjoyed every single moment of it. I especially loved learning more about characters that we’ve known for a long time. This series just keeps getting better!