With a werewolf gang moving into the area and starting a
war with the local werecats, a new supernatural drug hitting the streets that
makes people preternaturally strong and nearly immune to pain and injury,
several disappearing vampires and a new werecougar who really needs Jazz to
show her the ropes – everything seems to be happening at once for Jazz. It’s overwhelming,
it’s non-stop and it threatens the supernatural in the city from several angles
Not least because of supernaturally-aware government
agents showing up – and news of the supernatural finally being leaked to the
world at large
This book has an immensely fast paced, action packed
storyline. It pulls in all the characters we’ve seen before and faces off
against threats from all sides that hit so many of them personally.
It has some really well written fight scenes, just
designed to get the blood pumping with excitement - which is hard to do in print and few
authors manage to pull it off. We have an involved, complicated and
multi-faceted investigation without dead zones, without it being too linear,
without it being simplistic or obscure. We also have multiple storylines, each
with complex, real threads, each of which demand Jazz’s attention, each of which
are vitally important and show how overwhelmed she is – but at the same time
they all manage to come together excellently.
And through it all we have Jazz, with her awesome (and predominantly female) friends, intelligent and skilled without unnecessary “chosen one” elements. A keen sense of duty that is really sold (even if she does go over the top, it’s really well portrayed as I mentioned in my review of Hollow Eyes –her sense of duty is her sense of responsibility, her sense of professionalism and her way of proving herself.
It also continues with its diversity, with Jazz having 2
lesbian friends (albeit in more background roles since the earlier books but
they’re still awesome with some excellent unique skills on Rachel’s part – and there’s
some mention of homophobia Rachel faces from her family), being half-Chinese
herself and having Japanese, Latino, Native American and Black characters all
as important connections, friends and actors in the supernatural world and
close to Jazz. We do have some elements that continue the shakiness – like the prevalence
of Latino gang members (but they’re not demonised for it or presented as having
just one aspect to their personalities) and an evil-voodoo practitioner (but we
also have a voodoo practitioner who isn’t evil as well) but in general the main
problem is simply having so many characters and not the time and the space to
give them all screen time – especially since this book was very narrow to Jazz
even while it involved everyone.
That’s a recipe for a lot of awesome. But there’s an
issue. A big one
There’s a lot that happens that isn’t explored to the
degree I’d expect it to – or doesn’t have the same kind of impact I’d expect it
to. This is going to be hard to write about without spoiling so I’m going to do
a lot of dancing around the subjects.
Like Jazz suffers
a severe loss in this book – but she kind of rolls with it. Yes she grieves but
she keeps moving and doesn’t suffer the magnitude of loss I’d expect. I think
part of the reason why it’s so jarring to me is that Jazz’s muted reaction also
kind of mirrored my own. I don’t think we’ve truly been shown how much these
people mean to Jazz, I don’t think the relationships have been properly
established or the characters fully developed enough for the loss to be felt.
When Jazz didn’t seem to feel the loss that deeply, it only emphasised how
little the lost mattered to me in the story’s context. I considered it a
distraction.
There was also the arrival of Jason who brought two
things: a brand new and fascinating supernatural and a government agency
involved in investigating and, it seems, policing the supernatural. Again, neither
of these things are investigated to a huge degree but both of them are far too
major to be discounted they way they were. Even if we count them all as being
far too busy to be interested in a new supernatural, the government knowing
about, being involved in and actively intervening in the supernatural is,
theoretically, far more dangerous, far reaching and important than the actual
plot line they’re dealing with. It wasn’t just during the action, but even at
the end of the book everyone seemed inclined to let it go and move on without spending
too many brain cells worrying about it.
While these are the ones that were the most glaring,
there were also some elements that were interesting – but the book was far too
full to properly develop them so they ended up being kind of untouched or
hurried without the impact explored. Jazz’s friendship with Victoria, the vampire
leader, for example. Or her dominance battles with Leon, the werecat alpha
(which would have been so excellent to explore). Or there was Jim and his
daughter Faith. Or Detective
Tabatha’s whole friendship and working with Jazz – that needed to be there
more. Just little tid-bits thrown in any of which should really have been a
full story element.
There are other elements in this book that aren’t wrong,
but feel like they’re happening too soon or haven’t been properly supported in
the series to date. I can see them happening – I just think there needed to be
a lot more development for them to happen, a lot more of the character’s lives
or these storylines displayed before these events. Take the big bad. The big
bad has apparently been the big bad throughout this series. And I can sort of
see it if I remember and strain – but there’s been so little focus on him that
it kind of lost me. These stories have been very much about Jazz and her
friends, they’ve been very personal stories. Because of that, the whole concept
of a big bad wasn’t really necessary, the meta-ties of the series were the
relationships and character development; monster of the week would have worked.
The big bad took too much of a back seat and when the big confrontation
happened I was less “it’s HIM?!” and more “uh… who are you again?”
And there’s the big ending where Jazz’s relationship with
the werewolf pack dramatically changes and… I don’t see it. Or, rather, I haven’t
seen it. I have not seen Jazz develop this level of closeness to the pack, I have
not seen her make lots of friends among the pack, I haven’t seen her spend much
time with the pack. I have seen no foundation over the course of this series to
justify this new event, it was jarring and out of place because it was a great
big tower built on sand.
This sounds like I’m complaining a lot (and I am). But
the core of all of my complaints is that this book – indeed, this series – has a
lot of REALLY GOOD IDEAS. Some really brilliant, original, fascinating ideas
and I want to chase down every one and see them all developed and explored for
all their juicy fascinatingness. But there isn’t room to develop all of these
ideas in the time provided so too many fall all limp and flabby and
under-explored. There’s an excess of inspiration and far too many good things
in this book. So many good things that so many of them just don’t get the time
and the respect they deserve. There were enough ideas in this book for half a
series – and they were just mooshed in.
There’s so much awesome here – but that awesome could
have been far far more awesome if it’d been allowed to grow and develop over
another 3 or even 4 books.
