Review: Creature by Kim Fielding (Bureau #3)


Note: This ARC was provided by the author via Other Worlds Ink in exchange for an honest review.

This book is not your mother's Frankenstein! That sounded better in my head, but you get what I mean, or at least I hope you do. Creature is the third and newest addition to the Bureau series penned by author Kim Fielding, and this has now become my favorite among her books that I've had the pleasure of reading or listening to. While this may be part of a series, it does work extremely well as a standalone, although I'm going to recommend you check out the first two novellas as well since they were highly enjoyable reads and provide more back story to the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs and the kind of cases they handle and targets--human or otherwise--that they do go after.

Paper-thin skin, nearly skeletal in appearance, and with body parts stitched together, John is a creature that evokes horrified reactions from almost everyone that sees him. He is neither a man nor one who has a name. To the one who made him and to those in the Bureau who poked and prodded and continue to hold him in a cell, he is nothing more than an "it". But now he has a purpose--he's to be made the bait in a plan to bring down someone seeking to reanimate others. The Bureau has brought in Harry Lowe, who failed to qualify as an agent but is the perfect person for this case. He's got a pretty face, one that could lure in their perpetrator, and Harry is to use the creature as the sacrificial lamb. In exchange, he gets to become an agent...but is he willing to give John up for it?

Gah! There was something extraordinarily fantastical yet realistic about this book. Like those before it, it continues to remind us that the worst kinds of monsters are the ones that look all too...normal...familiar...human. Here, however, the story and the main characters themselves have more meat to their bones, figuratively speaking. Reading Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein is not a necessity; a basic familiarity with the story line should more than suffice. Like I mentioned in the beginning of my review, though, Fielding's Creature is not Frankenstein; it is very much in a class of its own. This had a bit of a noir feel to it, and it was the one book that truly made me feel as if it were the 50s, with mentions of familiar names and events. Bureau chief Townsend makes an appearance here once again, and the man has definitely piqued my curiosity here more than in the first two, but it was truly John and Harry who captured my imagination and my heart with their story. Sometimes, the ones who are different are the ones we fear most, but more often than not, they are the ones who have purer intentions. This gets five stars. ♥

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Read my reviews for the Bureau series:


Corruption (book one) - 4.5 stars - My Review

Clay White (book two) - four stars - My Review

Creature (book three) - five stars - My Review (posted above)

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Date Read: 13 May 2018

Learn more about Kim Fielding.

Purchase Creature on Amazon.

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