The Lost (Celestial Blues #2) by Vicki Pettersson

 

The number one question in Griffin Shaw's life is who killed both him and his wife Evie fifty years ago.  Though he has found new love with rockabilly babe Kit, Evie continues to haunt his dreams.  It's been four months since he saved Kits life and returned to the mudflat (read: earth) but he is no closer to solving this extremely cold case.

Life keeps moving and the pures keep sending him souls to guide into the Everlast.  He may be part human now, but his duties as a centurion continue.  It is these duties that force him to do a take for Jeap Yang - a drug addict.  What he does not know is that this take will be different because not only will Kit involved, she will be introduced to a fallen.  This alone would be bad enough, but it will lead them on a trail to investigate a horrible new drug flooding the streets and confront both the Russian and Cuban mafia. Will Griffin and Kit manage to survive unscathed and can their fragile love survive all the forces which seemed aligned against them?

In The Taken, Pettersson included a strong message against violence aimed at women but The Lost, is absent such a message. Instead it seemed to fixate on fighting the subjugation of sexist patriarchal beliefs by showing women in charge of organized crime.   These women were strong but incredibly cold.  In Kit she did decide to show a softer kind of strength however but she was one person against two very domineering and angry women.  The difference between Kit and the two antagonists is that Kit is never really portrayed as having to battle sexism.  It seems to imply a sort of revenge fantasy rather than women being in control because they are powerful, organized and capable.

There was certainly more racial inclusion in The Taken but not only inclusion is good inclusion.  Once again,  Lil and Fleur made an appearance but their sole purpose was to educate Kit about Latino culture. 

"Shit, girl, he probably ain't Mexicano." Screwing up her beautifully painted mouth, Lil drew back to regard Kit with disdain. "You think us Latinas all look alike."

"No I don't," Kit said defensively, but the two women gave her matching stares, arms folded across their chests, perfectly plucked eyebrows raised in identical doubt. "You two, for example, look better than anyone I've ever seen in my entire life." (pg 89)

This was a salient point for both Lil and Fleur to make.  Despite being a good friend to both women, Kit remains clueless about Latino culture.

The Taken by Vicki Pettersson Book One of the Celestial Blues Series

Griffin Shaw is a very haunted man.  Fifty years ago, he was murdered along with his wife, whom he loved with everything that he had.  Unable to get over the grief of being unable to protect Evie, instead of passing into paradise, Grif becomes a centurion.  His job is to ferry souls who have died as a result of violence into everlast. 


In what should have been an ordinary take, Grif displays empathy for a murdered woman by allowing her to inhabit her body briefly to change her clothing and fix her hair.  To do this, he has to enter her body briefly.  This means that Grif has participated in the sin of taking on flesh and it is compounded by the fact that his actions end up marking Kit for death.


Grif is told that in order to learn to do his job properly, he must watch as Kit is gang raped and murdered and then bring her over to Everlast.  He waits in her bedroom and watches as the attack begins, but quickly discovers that he cannot watch as an innocent woman is violated and murdered.  Thus begins the search the person who is responsible for the attempt on Kit's life, as well as the person who 50 years ago brought an end to Grif's life. 


The Taken has a very interesting organizational structure for heaven and the angels.  I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the difference between the Pures (those who have always existed as angels) and imperfect humans.  Existential conversations have been popular as of late in the genre and Pettersson managed to pull it off without giving the feeling like a philosophy 101 lecture.


One of the universal themes in this book was challenging gender based violence and misogyny.  Too often in the media, there is much slut shaming, and victim blaming.  Though the story involved sex workers, who clearly would have what many have socially determined to be spoiled identities, we were clearly meant to sympathise with them and to understand the actions which forced them into sex work. Women in this case were strong not because they were badass gun toting vigilantes, but because they refused to turn away from the ugliness of the world and sought truth.   Even when Kit was demeaned for having a mind of her own and for daring to express her opinion, she continued to do so.