The Immortals ~ JT Ellison

The Immortals (Taylor Jackson #5)
Mira Booka
October 1, 2010
389 pages
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** Reviews of previous books in series **

It is Samhain--the Blood Harvest. Nonbelievers call it Hallowe'en. The night when eight Nashville teenagers are found dead, with occult symbols carved into their naked bodies. It's a ritual the killers believe was blessed by Death himself. (from Goodreads)

Recently reinstated - and with almost her entire team back together, plus one new member, McKenzie - Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson is ready to get back to work. What she's not ready for is  the mass murder. What the team expect to be one murder soon turns into much, much more.

And something so different than what they're used to dealing with. There's always more at stake when children are the victims - more pressure from the public and from investigators themselves - and this time it's more than one young victim.

A case seemingly involving Satanism, witchcraft, drugs and young people at every turn has people both horrified and angry. It's up to Taylor and her team - along with some unlikely contributors - to bring the perpetrators to justice and keep the public safe.


The Immortals is pretty much a perfect book to review on Halloween. The crimes happen on Halloween - or Samhain or Hallowe'en, whichever. Not only that, the crimes involve the occult and there are witches, spells and magic in The Immortals.

The Immortals' magic using characters are not happy, light characters at all. Yes, they killed people, but there's some squicky stuff going on with them, too. While it was not always fun stuff to read about, I like that in this Taylor Jackson series, we get both sides of the story. We see Taylor looking for the killers while also seeing who the killers are. No, they're not just these horrible, evil, no-good-very-bad people she's out to find and capture but it makes the story much better.

Even if they're not people you'd want to hang around (at all), Ellison makes them human to readers, they're not just the bad guy.

This fifth book did feel quite a bit different from the others. I'm not sure if the type of crime gave the novel a different tone or if it was the flashbacks. Along with the story of Taylor in Nashville working to solve the Halloween murders, there was a sort of separate story involving Baldwin.

Baldwin and Taylor were separate through most of the book and his story involved Charlotte - who will be more familiar to readers of 14, but you don't have to have read that one - and some flashbacks. It was really it's own story and the chapters almost alternated. I'm almost nervous to see where this story line takes things in the next book (or two) but it likely did need to happen.

It was nice to see most of the old team back together and I'm glad McKenzie got to stay, he seems to really add something to the mix.

I like that this series, while still being able to be read as standalone books, moves the characters and their relationships along each book. Ellison also seems to be developing a 'Big Bad' who is present - and getting bigger and badder - across a few books as well as adding some new characters.


Rating: 8/10