RogerBW's Blog

A Questionable Client, Ilona Andrews 06 May 2019

2010 modern fantasy novelette, prequel to the Kate Daniels series. Kate the mercenary gets a short-notice, high-paying bodyguard job, for a particularly repulsive client.

This is a short and straightforward piece, giving a retroactive introduction to a couple of characters we'll in the series proper, but without being too knowing about what they'll get up to later. It doesn't obviously break continuity with the rest of the series; it's while Kate is still successfully keeping her background a secret, and that's not broken here.

There are some monsters from Russian folklore for Kate to fight, and plenty of room for her no-nonsense attitude, effectively contrasted with someone who probably thinks of himself as a good person but… isn't.

But that's about it, really. There's no room for the emotional complexity that characterises the later books; it's a straightforward tale of supernatural adventure in an interesting setting.

So it's probably best treated as a spoiler-free taster. If you're wondering about whether to read the series, try this and see if you like the writing style, bearing in mind that the plotting and characterisation here are good-but-basic, and get better in the full-length books.

Available free online. For paper purchasers, this in the anthologies Dark and Stormy Knights and Magic Graves, as well as in some editions of Magic Bites.

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Series: Kate Daniels | Next in series: Magic Bites

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