Anita killed one of Edward’s backups – which means she
owes him a favour and he has finally called to collect. Or his alter ego has –
reassuring Anita that what he wants in New Mexico is nice and legal. And a
holiday away from her love life is probably not a bad idea.
Little did she imagine she’d be plunged into Edwards and
that the cold, lethal assassin has a fiancée and she has 2 children – all of
which have no idea about the man she’s going to marry.
And while the job may be legal – it’s brutal. Dozens of
people have been killed or mutilated – and the deaths are some of the worst Anita
has ever seen. Worse, it’s been done in a way neither she nor Edward’s
erstwhile and experienced back up have ever seen.
Anita has to find and stop the murderer even as the death
toll rises. That means facing Aztec gods, a fellow necromancer, ancient
vampires and a prejudiced police force – even before she gets to the monster itself,
which can feel her looking for it, and is watching her.
The writing style of this book – indeed of this series –
walks that line between being evocative, setting the scene and having that fun,
snarky, hard boiled internal narrative that I so love and being extremely over
descriptive, pointless and dull. Since this book is set apart from her lovers,
it pulls it back and goes back to earlier books where it is more for setting
scene, theme and mood, rather than us enjoying 20 pages describing just how
blue Jean-Claude’s very blue eyes are.
And it really does convey the sense of place. It’s one of
those books where you’re nearly sure the author must have spent some time in
the location in question because they seem to know it. There’s such a realness
to the scene and the area that you rarely get from second hand accounts.
The story also went back to the roots of what Anita does.
Police investigation. Finding the big gribbly monster and killing it. Following
the clues, enduring the grisly, horrifying crime scenes, trying to find the
monster before it causes too much damage, putting life, limb and moral code at
risk trying to protect innocent people. We have twists and turns, brilliant
ideas and deductions alongside the gruelling police work. It was a great story
to read, the plot never made me bored or had me turning away – and as in
previous books we have multiple plot lines that come together nicely, bringing
in Riker, Itzpaplotl and the Big Bad all in a natural, well paced and
inter-related manner.
The only time I felt the story pacing was off was during
the long and repeated monologues while Anita considered her own relationships
and when looking at Edward’s with Donna. I can understand the latter – but they
were drawn out, repeated, and the same message, information and growth could
have been shown much more concisely. My only complaint is I feel the story
ended with rather an anti-climax
I also liked the building of Edward as a character,
finally adding more to him than “man who has guns.” I’ve never particularly
liked him as a character – I always considered him to empty, more a convenient walking
weapon than any real kind of person. This added a level of depth even though it
was a series of masks – and showed something he truly cared about as well as
his growing relationship with Anita. It humanised him without damaging his aura
of mystery too much – it was well done.
There is a lot less sexual content in this book than
there were in previous – yet there are still moments which feel all the more
gratuitous and unnecessary because of that – like Bernardo having to strip. And
Blade. And Deuce. And every man having apparently had a penis transplant with
an elephant or the sexy times with the werejaguars. Nor did Anita have to be
seen as a potential sex interest for Bernardo, Ramirez, Red Woman’s Husband and
even Olaf. I don’t see this adding anything else to the story and just adds
that even the villains in this series must have 14 inch penises.
Anita continues to be a strong, determined woman who does
her own things, dishes out shit when deserves, takes the lead unless her
respect has been earned, makes her own decisions, refuses to be belittled and
can stand toe-to-toe with any other man there. She has some Keille
independence, but otherwise is a pretty awesome character. Anita faces
sexism, labels it and calls it out – she expects it and has a very realistic
and cynical view of what it is to be a woman in her profession and circles.
The other women in the book? Not so much. I’ve said before,
Anita seems to present herself as a strong character despite being female,
rather than a strong female character.
Donna is repeatedly presented as insecure, fragile, innocent (even Olaf
thinks so) and weak – which Anita has to drag her over the coals for. Professor
Dallas is petite, tiny – and the whole time we see her everyone, even the big
bad vampire, is worried about her being Olaf’s victim. Paulina is dangerous –
but we switch to the second mode of attack and Anita analyses how unattractive
she is (and insecure about Anita and her husband) and she ends up dead. Amanda
the Amazon – yes, I know – is a woman who can fight, but she is described as
not only being tall and strong – but only her breasts let you know she’s
actually a woman. She’s described in a way that downplays or dismisses her
femaleness – and she ends up dead.
About the only female characters who escape are vampires –
who have a supernatural EXCUSE for their strength.
The book also introduces one of the vilest characters in
the series –Olaf. A serial killer, torturer and rapist who despises women – oh and
fixates on women who look just like Anita. Why is this character here? Why is
he tolerated? Why didn’t Edward kill him? Why didn’t Anita kill him? What did
he bring to the skill set that was so essential it was worth tolerating this
man’s presence? Why is everyone treating him being a serial killing rapist as
some kind of unpleasant personal habit rather than something that, in this
company, should have had him shot 8 or 9 times. I would much rather the
exchange have gone like this:
“You will owe me another favour if you kill Olaf,”
“Fine.” *bang*
“I owe you another favour, help me hide the body.”
This would have made me immensely happy.
We also have an undertone of sex shaming, with Anita
disapproving of Bernardo’s promiscuous ways and them both adopting the “Madonna
vs Whore” dichotomy when it comes to sexual women – or sexual people in
general. And Anita’s only concern is making sure she falls on the Madonna side
of the equation.
I did like the depiction of pot hunters in this book –
and an unflinching summation of why what they do is so wrong and why they are
not just minor, harmless criminals. The stealing of this artefacts is done by
truly evil people - and the people purchasing
them face some pretty dire consequences.
There are a lot of POC in this book and there are some
issues that are addressed: Bernardo being separated from his culture when he
was put up for adoption and how, no matter what, he will always be seen as the
exotic token. Ramirez talking about how differently he’s treated for being
Latino – and how that effects Anita since her being Latina is going to be more
noticeable in a place and among people who are actually looking for it. There’s
an unflinching look at the Spanish
conquest of the Aztecs and the vampire group in Albuquerque is predominantly
made up of POC. It’s actually pretty novel in the genre to have an ancient
vampire who isn’t European.
But we do have some dubious elements to say the least – with Anita asking Bernardo some severely personal questions long before she could possibly be considered to know him well enough to talk about them – like his upbringing and making a comment about him using a knife as a stereotype. And she accuses Bernardo of being jealous of her ability to pass – which is all kind of fraught, especially since Anita herself later tells Bernardo she thinks of herself as white (just not “white enough” in some eyes, like her ex-fiancé’s)
There’s little in the way of GBLT characters – but the
Aztec vampires do feed by sucking blood from a man’s penis – a scene that
exists only to show that some vampires are literally starving themselves and
enduring torture for centuries rather than put another man’s penis in their
mouth, and to show that Olaf, the serial killing monster, loves to watch people
cut and bleed, but is more willing to turn his back to a room full of monsters
than to watch said feeding. Oh and for Anita to use homophobic taunting to rile
Olaf. We do have 2 powerful disabled characters with Nicy Barco and Paulina –
both are strong, dangerous in their own way and people both respect and fear
them – but both are villains and both are victimised. But it is active power on
their part which is rather unique.
This book is one of the peaks in the series. The story is
excellently written and paced, with a coherent plot that relies on neither
lampshading nor massive leaps of logic. The world setting brilliantly presented
with a small cast of characters that are generally interesting. The book is
focused, undistracted, internally consisted and, above all, a fun, interesting
read – and highly recommended. This is the book I wish the rest of the series
would be. This is the book with Anita at her best – focused, capable,
determined and strong. She has grown and developed but still has doubts. She is
dealing with her own internalised worry about whether she’s good or not based
on her magic and is embracing her powers. She is still burning out from her
serial killer investigations and that emotional toll is there, with her, along
with her own worry of becoming Edward and losing herself to protect the innocent.
But that drive to protect is still there. She is capable without super-powers
reaching a ridiculous level and other characters are allowed to be more skilled
than her in different areas.
It all just works – it’s not without its problems by any
means, but the book works and it’s an excellent read.
