Elfland has returned, magically inserting itself into modern America; in the buffer zone between the two, Bordertown, where magic works alongside electricity and gas supplies, congregate misfits and refugees from both our reality and Elfland. One such human is Orient, whose talent is, unerringly, to find things or people; his partner, Tick-Tick, is an elf princess and motorbike mechanic. Orient is hired by Sunny Rico, one of Bordertown's distinctive, broad-minded, laid-back cops, to trace the drugs distributed by a recently murdered small-time dealer. The drugs purportedly transform humans into elves, but the victims die- -although Tick-Tick reports that the drugs actually work somewhat. They determine that a cop is involved somewhere along the line. Then, suddenly, elves fall sick: Sunny's partner, Linn, is an early victim, then Tick-Tick. As Sunny and Orient work to unravel the relationship between the wannabe-elves, the drugs, and the epidemic, romance between them grows; but elves are dying, and the guilty cop might well be Sunny's boss. Splendid ideas and beguilingly life-like characters, with a well set-up plot that mostly holds water. Despite the unnecessary last 50 pages: a refreshing, ingenious hardcover debut.
