Brothers to Death (Saga of Larten Crepsley, book 4)

By Darren Shan

Blurb: 
After years of wandering, Larten has finally found his way back to his vampire family and resumed the vigorous, brutal training to become a General. But there are vampires determined to pull Larten into starting a war that could have global implications and casualties. Vampires who will stop at nothing. Vampires who would betray Larten in the most cutting way.

Review: 
This was the last book of the Larten Crepsley Saga, I’m sad in a way to finish it. However this will mean I won’t be long from reading the Demonata Series which is apparently better than the Darren Shan Saga. so I have that to look forward to.

The book starts with Larten alive, obviously Gavner didn’t choose to kill Larten to revenge his parents. Instead Larten takes Gavner in as his student as he teaches his General ways. Being a General, this leads him to having the task to dealing with the Nazi’s. The Nazi’s see the Vampies as a great potential ally and want their help in the war that's brewing. Larten sense evil among them and believes this war to come will be the worst one yet and decided it’s best for the clan to not be involved. What I love about this book was all the WWII references throughout the book including the bombing of Hiroshima. I love this because I’m such a history nerd myself and really appreciate a book set in the past and this book out of the 4 just hit me so much more with the time period. 

There’s not many flaws in this book or even the series for that matter. One thing I will critique is the book is rather slow. It takes a while for things to build up and go horribly wrong but when they do go horribly wrong it does make up for it in a way. I know I can’t expect none stop adventure but I just sometimes lose interest at some points in the book and I think that's the only thing holding me back from rewarding 5 stars.

*SPOILERS*
Larten had managed to gain a friendship with Alicia, even though he wanted more. This friendship allowed him to see Alicia age and her child grow, so I suspected she would die but of old age. But of course there's a twist and Alicia is in fact murdered and you believe it to be by a Vampaneze known as Randel Chayne who was the Vampaneze tormenting Tanish Eurl in the previous book. 

However the twists continue because it turned out he was long dead, killed by Wester as a scapegoat for him so he could kill Alicia to give Larten the motivation he needed to support the Vampire vs Vampaneze war. I never expected this till the end of the last few chapters when Slyva (Alicia's daughter) said she had seen her mother's killer during one of Larten’s performances at the Cirque Du Freak. Then it suddenly clicked in my brain and it all made sense that Wester did it to get Larten’s support as suggested from Mr Tiny. I was made a fool up and till that point, well done Darren Shan. 

Shan doesn’t stop there with the story obviously, as Larten promised to kill Alicia’s killer and this betrayal wasn’t going to stop him. Wester and Larten fought on top of a skyscraper till eventually Wester had his throat sliced and his end came to him. I knew Wester would die, just based on the title of the book and the fact he wasn’t mentioned in the next series, I just didn’t expect it to be from the hands of Larten Crepsley.

I really felt for Larten, as he had his love killed by his best friend, his blood brother. To go through so much betrayal in his life time, it’s no wonder he was often depicted as suicidal. He’s had a hard life but he’s made one hell of a good series. 

One of the scenes I really enjoyed was when Larten had a fight with Vancha. I knew it wouldn’t ruin their friendship due to the Darren Shan series but it was a good scene. It all starts because Larten is trying to convince Vampires to push for war against the Vampaneze, as we earlier discovered was because of Wester. Vancha is against the war but more importantly against a man following false beliefs. When Vancha discovers this is what Larten is doing, he decides to go tell him off and eventually this leads to a fight. It was a good fight and Larten wasn’t far off from winning, it also increased Larten’s reputation among the clan. I just found this scene fun and I can’t fully explain why because these two friends are fighting, and yet I enjoyed it.

In the same night as the fight, Arra Sails makes a reappearance and comes to ask Larten to be her mate now. After discussion, he accepts and they get married in their Vampire ways. I was so happy to finally get to this part of the series but sadly that didn’t last long as their marriage wasn’t as happy as I thought it would be. I was disappointed as Larten was still thinking about getting Randel rather than enjoying his time with Arra. This upset me.

Darren Shan made up for it though by developing a backstory for a character I never expect to get one: Truska. Truska is a bearded woman from the Darren Shan saga who is part of the Cirque Du Freak. Her backstory was that she was a creature known as a Skelk which are hairy creatures of the sea. They can grow their anywhere on demand which explains how Truska does her act. I looked up Skelks to see if they were made up by Darren Shan and I believe they were or at least his description of a Skelk as I did find a game that has creatures of the same name but different traits. I found this really creative of Shan as it’s a whole new creature with a unique traits and language. It's amazing that his mind has came up with something like that, as it’s one thing to talk about Vampires and expand their stereotypes and create the Vampaneze but it’s a whole other task to create a completely new creature. 

There was something in this book that caught my attention. When Larten returns to the Cirque, he increases the danger of his act by adding falling onto stakes, but getting away at the right time. I think this to be a reference/foreshadow for his death as that's how he died. It was very subtle and I hope it did have that intention and not just a coincidence. 

As Larten’s story starts to catch up with the Darren Shan books he still makes one unexpected trip before heading to the Cirque once more. Crepsley ends up at a monastery which he previously encountered at Truska’s wedding. The monastery provides him peace after killing Wester and most importantly he finally gets Madame Octa, his pet spider from the Darren Shan books. I’ve been waiting a long time for her to make an appearance and she finally did.

In the end he returns to the Cirque to Freak which he stays in till he comes across Steve and Darren one night. The book ends where he sees the boys for the first time and realises they’re significant, he just doesn’t know how yet. I liked the way this ended because if someone decided to read this series before the Darren Shan series they could and it would be a great end of the series to lead them into the next. However I would still advise to read the Darren Shan Saga first because this series contains a lot of significant references and characters that you won’t enjoy as much by reading it first. 

Overall, I would rate this 4 stars because I enjoyed the writing style, short chapters and the horror Larten went through in this book. I would rate the series overall 4 out of 5 as well because it was consistently good but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the Darren Shan Saga causing me to hold back to 4 stars. I look forward to reading the Demonata series in the near future.

Rating: 4 runes out of 5 

Series Rating: 4 runes out of 5 

written by Lauren