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After a lighthearted opening packed with Buffy-esque wackiness, Samhain Corvus Lacroix is dragged from his dead-end food-service job into a terrifying magical power struggle. When a visitor to the Plumpy's fast-food restaurant identifies unexceptional college-dropout Sam as a necromancer, narrator Sam writes the whole day off as an encounter with an unpleasant eccentric. But he can't ignore the rapid downward spiral of events: the attack by a super-strong thug in the parking lot, the murder of a friend, the appearance of his dead friend's reanimated head. Occasional chapters narrated in the third person introduce readers to the intrigues of Seattle's mystical underworld, with its Council led by an evil necromancer and its packs of fey hound-werewolf crossbreeds. When Douglas, the evil necromancer, kidnaps Sam outright, the adventure takes a turn to the downright gruesome, with semi-graphic descriptions of torture (interspersed with occasionally steamy romantic interludes). Despite uneven pacing and abandoned plot threads, this quirky urban fantasy will compel fans of horror and supernatural romance--and heroic skateboarding slackers. (Urban fantasy. YA)
