Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up magical problems. Then Kate’s former guardian, Greg Feldman, a powerful Knight Diviner who works for the Order of Merciful Aid, is murdered and her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles: the Masters of the Dead, necromancers who control vampires (the People), and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shifters. A series of bizarre and truly gruesome killings (which includes Greg) have the Masters and the Pack ready to start a war, because it looks like the other is behind it. Pressured by both sides to find the killer and temporarily deputized by the Order, Kate sets out to bring Greg’s killer to justice and stop the violence before it spills over into the unmagical world.
When the magic is up, rogue mages can cast their spells and monsters will appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake. Kate’s powerful enough to be a Knight but has a problem with submitting to authority, so she works as a merc instead. She has a magical sword, Slayer, and is so powerful she can wield at least 4 words of power (most mages master 1 or 2 and you can die in the trying).
Thoughts:
One of the things that I like about this series is that it takes a grim view of both vamps and shifters. The apex alpha of the Pack, Curran Lennart, is every part an animal in human form: violent with the morality of an animal rather than a human being. The keep their violence tightly under control. Even though Kate acts unaffected by it, Curran's caged violence terrifies her. Vampires (the People) aren't dark and broody prime specimens of masculinity; they're feral with disgusting, shriveled bodies and translucent skin, the husks of desperate or dying people (mostly poor) who signed over their bodies to give their families a better life. The vampiric virus kills the host, and turns them into mindless bloodthirsty things, controlled by navigators (the Masters of the Dead). There’s nothing romantic about either group and while Kate knows the rules, we’re only just learning them.
We mostly encounter vamps piloted by Ghastek Stefanoff. Any time they show up, I cringe because my skin crawls. My skin crawls a lot of the time. It's a refreshing change from the standard vampire/shifter tale.
Regarding the audiobook: While I like this narrator, her voice is too wimpy too often, in places where I don't think Kate would wilt like a flower. Tomato, to-mah-to.
4 out of 5 stars.
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