Return of the Trickster is the last novel of the Trickster Trilogy, so do not read this review if you have not read Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift yet.

Return of the Trickster picks up immediately after the events of Trickster Drift. Jared is back in our dimension after being repeatedly consumed and brought back to life just to be consumed again by his Aunt Georgina, the ogress. Georgina is still stuck in the dimension that Jared took her to, but she can still communicate with him telepathically, and threatens to have her coy wolves kill his family and friends if he does not bring her back too.

Jared spends most of the time in this novel being very, very tired and wishing he was dead so that his family would be safe and falling off the wagon after a tragic loss. It would be depressing to read if he did not still have his sarcastic, smart-ass sense of humour. The best part of the Trickster novels has always been Jared’s crazy family dynamics and the way that the characters in the novel interact with each other. Return of the Trickster is even more bizarre than its predecessors with human organs escaping from bodies and running away, an interdimensional octopus and “hugan” sasquatches, among other things.

It is interesting how the hero spends most of the novel being passive while it is his family and friends that are actively running around and hunting the coy wolves to protect him. However, Jared is still the type of person who takes care of everyone but himself and it is inevitable that the novel will end in a showdown between Jared and Georgina. The novel’s ending is decent, but the “epilogue-ish” is better.

Son of a Trickster is the best novel of the trilogy, but Trickster Drift and Return of the Trickster are both very good, too. The Trickster Trilogy is definitely worth reading. I cannot wait to see what Eden Robinson comes up with next.