Buried Threads picks up pretty much where Severed Threads left off. Rachel Lyons and Chase Cohen are treasure hunting partners and lovers. They are offered a job finding buried treasure in Japan. The Heart of Darkness, a katana with a very large emerald embedded in the scabbard. There is a curse that goes along with the katana and will drag Rachel and Chase into a world of mobsters, intrigue, human trafficking and a touch of the supernatural.
I enjoyed the book, though not nearly as much as I did the first novel. The characters were well drawn but I think this time there were just too many characters to try and keep straight. It seems that the author really wanted to keep you in suspense as to who can be trusted, who is on the side of good and who is on the side of evil. It was far to easy to get lost in the web that was being cast that unfortunately, it was hard to keep the thread of the story straight. Instead of adding to the suspense and intrigue, it tended to take away from it.
The addition of Japanese words and phrases would have been easier for many to read if there was actually a reference to what the terms meant. Sometimes it was made clear and sometimes there were just phrases put in with no reference whatsoever as to what they meant.
Ghosts, spirits, souls, reincarnation and the afterlife are represented here and for the most part it's done really well. A light touch was used through most of the scenes where the supernatural was present and it seemed to flow with the story. But there were a few times where it just seemed to be thrown in for the sake of being able to explain something away.
All in all, it was still a good read and went by fairly quickly. There were a few sluggish areas and there were simply too many twists and turns involved that the main story seemed to get lost sometimes in the web of intrigue. But all that aside, I'm interested in seeing what happens to Rachel and Chase next. I hope that the author isn't quite done with them yet. A note of warning, this book really isn't a stand alone novel, to understand some of the context, you should read Severed Threads first.
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