Book Review: Catacomb by Madeleine Roux

Catacomb (Asylum #3) by Madeleine Roux

Blurb:

Sometimes the past is better off buried.

Senior year is finally over. After all, they've been through, Dan, Abby, and Jordan are excited to take one last road trip together, and they're just not going to think about what will happen when the summer ends. But on their way to visit Jordan's uncle in New Orleans, the three friends notice that they're being followed . . . and photographed. Then Dan starts receiving messages from someone he didn't expect to hear from again—someone who died last Halloween.

When the trio arrives in New Orleans and the strange occurrences only escalate, Dan is forced to accept that everything that has happened to him in the past year may not be a coincidence but fate—a fate that ties Dan to a group called the Bone Artists, who have a sinister fascination with notorious killers of the past.

Now Dan's only hope is that he will make it out of his senior trip alive.

My Review:

It was supposed to be a post-senior year road trip. One last hurrah before Abby, Jordan, and Dan go their separate ways for college. Jordan is moving to New Orleans to live with his uncle Steve before he starts Tulane in the fall. Abby is interested in photographing old Americana - small town people and old forgotten places - to prove to her parents she should take a gap year to focus on photography before deciding if and when she'll go to college. Dan just wants to spend time with his friends, especially Abby. 

But once again horror and mystery lie in wait for Dan. He has brought along a stolen file containing the only information he has on his parents, not to mention he's still having visions of things that aren't there and he's begun receiving cryptic messages from someone he knows cannot possibly be sending them. Why did his parents give him up? Where are they now? Does it have anything to do with the Brookline's infamous Warden (Dan's great-uncle)? 

Something is looming around the corner every step of the journey. Before they left, Jordan took out the spare tire to make room for his Star Wars sleeping bag. Spells for a smooth trip, right? 

Wrong. A flat tire causes them to walk to a small Alabama town where they receive help from a mechanic that later vanishes - that nobody has ever heard of, and a stranger on a motorcycle is following the trio and taking pictures of them. Then when they stop for the night in Shreveport after Abby just has to stop at a library there, Dan hears someone outside their tent but when he goes to investigate they run away. Who are they? Do they want to help or harm Dan?

Who is after Dan this time? And what do they want from him? What did his parents uncover about a pharmaceutical company called Trax Corp. that made them have to go into hiding? Will the nightmarish events that have been following him since his first stay at Brookline ever come to an end? 

I got about halfway through this book and couldn't finish. I tried, I really did, but somewhere along the way this series has changed so much from what was going on in the first book and a half that it got a little boring. Maybe it was when the author moved the story from Brookline to New Orleans and focused more on Dan's parents than the Warden but suddenly the story didn't seem to jive with the other two books. I also kept wanting more out of Dan. As a character, Dan never really showed the emotion I wanted him to. He never became a hero. The friendship between him, Jordan, and Abby was strange too. I could see Jordan and Abby being friends but Dan never really seemed to fit in with them. 

Maybe my inability to get into this book came from it being too long since I read book number two, I'm not really sure. It was alright, but I didn't love it and I'm not even sure I really liked it. Catacomb still has horror elements to it but it seems to delve more into the mystery of Dan's parents so if you like mystery over horror then I think you'll like this book. 

My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars