RogerBW's Blog

2013 urban fantasy, eleventh in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, has multiple problems in Denver.

And that's what's wrong with the book, really: it's a collection of small problems that don't individually seem all that challenging, and the real pressure on Kitty is to learn some time management skills (not that she seems to realise this).

• A new werewolf turns up and asks to join her pack, but seems to be challenging her authority; and Kitty hasn't been spending enough time on pack business to keep the others happy.

• Rick, the vampire master of Denver who's Kitty's most powerful local ally, seems to have fallen under the influence of someone who's offering him something he really wants – and may be leaving the city with him.

• Something magical is causing trouble, Cormac is going after it, and Kitty doesn't trust Cormac to do much self-preservation.

• Kitty's non-were sister is complaining about Kitty's lack of effort in doing family-type stuff for their parents.

There's a very slight connection between the Rick subplot and the Cormac subplot, but the new-werewolf part could have been a short story on its own, and the family thing feels forced and artificial whenever it comes up.

Some things happen that should have happened many books ago (Kitty finally sharing with her police ally what's going on with the vampire conspiracy) but alas this book feels like a bit of pipework to move some characters to where they need to be, combined with a lot of padding. It may just be the prevailing mood: nobody here seems to be having much fun, even when they solve their problems.

There are two or three more books in the series depending on how one counts, and some shorter material. I'm looking forward rather more to the latter; Vaughn's shorter works are often excellent. And I'll probably stick with the series to the end, because that's a thing I tend to do unless it goes very bad. But there's very little here to recommend it.