An indelible cast fuels this wildly entertaining, supernaturally enhanced detective story.
In Susman’s urban fantasy sequel, a private investigator assists a ghost who is bound to him and in serious danger.
Korean-American shamus Jae Kim has connections in “Wolftowns.” These walled-in neighborhoods were built decades ago all around the United States, including in Chicago, where Jae lives. Their original purpose was to confine extranormal people, or “extras,” including werewolves, vampires, and other shape-changers. Jae is human, but his boyfriend Czoltan is a werewolf activist fighting for the rights of extras. While Jae can’t shift forms, he does have a special ring and a corresponding spell for binding a ghost; these come in handy when a staggeringly loud “screeching” practically overtakes Chicago’s Wolftown. This caterwauling is the product of Penny, a recently-deceased 17-year-old who, like many ghosts, can’t remember specific details about her death. She also isn’t very happy about being bound to Jae, who can converse with her in his head (if she doesn’t manifest, others can’t see or hear her). Jae now has the legal responsibility of turning Penny over to her next of kin, but that doesn’t stop a Bureau of Extranormal Affairs agent from demanding that Jae give up the (bound) ghost. Penny fears the BEA and wants the detective to take her to her enigmatic friend Marta, but she’s otherwise frustratingly mum. The agency unquestionably wants something from her and is likely behind the people assaulting and shadowing Jae and threatening his loved ones. Jae, working with Captain Yumi Hachimura of Wolftown’s peacekeeping force, digs into the BEA and the mystery of a late teenager, who may know too much.
Susman here, as in the series’ opening entry Unfinished Business (2022), deftly fuses a detective story with the supernatural. Although this installment rarely strays from Jae and Penny’s mutual dilemma, shape-changers pop up throughout the narrative, and the author showcases a variety of mythologies and folklore, from the Indigenous American thunderbird and the Mesoamerican nagual (were-jaguar) to the serpent-like Naga of a number of Asian religions. The discrimination the extras suffer is analogous to that experienced by real-life marginalized groups; the narrative acknowledges the need for more sensitive nomenclature (“multimorph” is suggested as a potential replacement for “extra,” which implies only humans are “normal,” and the term “remained person” is considered preferable to “ghost”). Series hero Jae is a sharp, intuitive, and likable detective with relatable personal problems. The supporting cast is equally engaging; Penny has a tendency to whine or childishly ignore Jae, but she’s a brand-new ghost who’s just learning what she’s capable of. Czoltan makes for a sympathetic and devoted boyfriend, and Yumi, a yuki-onna (Japanese snow spirit) is a wonderful, strong character to have on Jae’s side. They’re all entangled in a mystery that ends with a satisfying resolution and hints at another sequel.
An indelible cast fuels this wildly entertaining, supernaturally enhanced detective story.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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