Angel of the Overpass
The Ghost Roads series, Book 3
Seanan McGuire
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It's been decades since Rose Marshall, the small-town Michigan teen girl from the wrong side of the tracks, was killed by Bobby Cross and his demonic car. Since then, she's been called many things - the Phantom Prom Queen, the Angel of the Overpass, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown - and done many things - served as psychopomp guiding new ghosts in the twilight America beneath the daylight world, helped out the odd mortal on the roadway, even traveled to the underworld for an audience with her patron goddess Persephone. But Bobby Cross has always loomed over her shoulder, the monster she can never escape, who still hunts her and those she loves, be they living or dead. She hates the man, but could never do anything about him while he had the power of the otherworldly crossroads at his back.
Now, the crossroads are dead, and all bets are off.
Without the trickster forces behind that unnatural place to back him up, Bobby Cross is growing more desperate, because for the first time since he made his dark bargain, he's vulnerable. Now, Rose Marshall no longer has to run. She can fight back and end his evil once and for all. But being vulnerable and desperate might make him more dangerous than he's ever been, and even though she's dead, Rose still has a lot to lose...
REVIEW: The third and (presumed) final tale of urban legend Rose Marshall and her nemesis Bobby Cross wraps the tale up in a suitably climactic fashion. Rose is not the girl she was when she was alive decades ago, and is not the same ghost she was when the series started, having gained and lost allies along the way. She's come to realize that it's not just about Bobby Cross's evil bargain to keep immortal life at the expense of the lives and ghosts that feed his demonic car; it's about other people trying to take control of (or take away) her life (or afterlife), and about those who feel they deserve things out of life or death when there never were such guarantees, willing to destroy anyone and anything to get what they feel they are "owed". Even Gary, the boy she would never meet at the dance, who spent his whole life searching for a way to join her in the afterlife only to end up reincarnated as a car upon the ghost roads, has been making decisions for her without actually talking to or even knowing her; the Rose he knew is the one whose bones are rotting in a Michigan cemetery, not the Rose she's become after decades as a hitcher ghost and urban legend. At times, the message (and some general meandering, which started feeling a bit like filler now and again) threatened to overwhelm the story, even as it cuts to the heart of what ultimately drives Rose Marshall to persist as she has in the afterlife, a determination to exist on her own terms in spite of the demands and limits placed upon her. This installment also seems tied more strongly with McGuire's related InCryptid urban fantasy series, which I've only read the first installment of. Nevertheless, in spite of sometimes feeling a touch drawn out, this makes a worthwhile conclusion to the tale of the Phantom Prom Queen, and while the door's clearly cracked open wide enough for future installments, things feel satisfactory where they are now.
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