Vignettes Four

I can't seem to manage the attention span to write long reviews these days, so I'm just going to lump a few comments together about several recent reads and let it go at that. Life tasks me...it tasks me.

Bitter Bite by Jennifer Estep is a recent addition to the series - I think she just released the latest on Tuesday - and I'm sorry to say that the whole thing has gone stale for me now. The plot, such of it as I was able to endure before closing the pages in sorrow, was far too predictable. Is Estep using too much foreshadowing, or have I simply seen it all before? I don't know, but I do know that I'm done following this series for now. Ms Estep is a really nice person and generally has been a readable author, and a good author, but I think she's just run out of new plot ideas for Gin Blanco, The Spider.

When I was younger, I found the tales spun by Patricia McKillip to be fanciful and entertaining, and read all of her books I could get my hands on. I picked up Kingfisher after a bit of a wait on the  hold list at the library, and eagerly attacked it the other night. Other reviewers may have found this book to be breaking new fantasy ground, or a mystical blending of ancient and modern mythology, but I simply found it confusing, and never really bit on a "hook" to reel me in. I put it down after a few chapters and returned it to the library. Sigh.

Four to Score, by Janet Evanovich, was everything I expected it to be - fluffy entertainment with some lovable characters, inside jokes, and the usual cast of felons to apprehend, a job which Stephanie Plum seems to mess up more often than not, but eventually she unravels something unexpected. She and Morelli finally fall into bed together in this one, but their predictably prickliness keeps them from enjoying post-coital bliss, despite the Morelli matrons' matrimonial ambitions. Need something to while away a few lonely hours? This one will do it.

I've also been working my way through the Honor Harrington novels for the third or fourth time; I've lost track. You'll find my reviews of On Basilisk Station and The Honor of the Queen here, but I appear to have paused at that point until about the tenth book in the series, so perhaps I'll begin again with A Short, Victorious War some sweet day.

Spider's Trap by Jennifer Estep

While attempting to untangle a dispute between a pair of minor mob bosses at a meeting hosted on her friend's riverboat, Gin - now the reluctant leader of the Ashland underworld - contends with more of a blowup than anticipated when a mysterious stranger detonates a bomb on the boat. It takes Gin a while to determine who the real target of the attack was, and when she does, it brings back flashbacks aplenty from her days training with Fletcher.

As has become the routine in these tales, Gin doesn't really want to get too involved in pursuing the attacker until one of her friends gets hurt. In this case, it's bf Owen, who narrowly escapes death at the hands of a vengeance-minded metal elemental.

Ok, so I've wondered occasionally why the all powerful and all knowing assassin, the Spider, with all of her friends and resources, never seems to spend any time just thinking about her craft, and how to do things better. It seems like she was more effective in the earlier stories, actually.

One of the key plot devices in most of the conflicts is the use of elemental magic. Why don't any of her allies sit her down and just do a brainstorming session about what possible attacks and defenses a fire elemental, ice elemental, stone elemental, metal elemental, water elemental (you get the drift?) would be most likely to use, or have been seen to have used, let alone come up with some novel ideas for how to attack or defend against one? Fletcher was supposed to have been one of the most feared and respected assassins in the history of Ashland, and Gin has access to all of his files, but he never wrote down anything he had learned about how to kill elementals? If he kept files at all, they ought to have been useful stuff, right, not just gossip and reminiscences. Of course, in the first place, what self-respecting assassin would ever keep paper files laying around his home for anyone to stumble across. Really?

So, once again, Gin gets surprised by how tricky and powerful and nasty her latest foe turns out to be, and nearly dies several times, before finally doing something desperate enough to work.

Time for Gin to step up her game.

Black Widow by Jennifer Estep

At least in this installment of the Spider's story, we get to return to a more deadly villain, as Gin finally gets the confrontation she's been expecting ever since Mab Monroe's daughter, Madeline M Monroe, arrived in Ashland. Madeline uses all of her connections around the city to launch a simultaneous group of attacks on Gin's friends and family. Finn is served with a lawsuit, Rosalyn gets cut off by her liquor distributor, one of Owen's big contracts falls through, while his sister Eva is suspended from college for cheating, and Jo-Jo's salon may be designated a historical landmark and deemed unsuitable to operate a business.

Then, horror of horrors, the health inspector arrives at the Pork Pit!

Accompanied by a posse of crooked cops, the barbecue joint is judged wanting and will be shut down. When Sophia trips the head cop, she is arrested for assault, and when Gin and her lawyer, Silvio, try to bail her out, Gin gets arrested, which was M. M.'s point all along. They immediately lock her away in "the Bull Pen", where prisoners get to fight each other to the death for the amusement of the crooked police force. Faced with five deadly opponents at once, Gin uses her mad fighting skills and elemental magic to not only defeat the thugs but to escape custody and take it on the lam.

Run to ground at the Pork Pit, the villainess surrounds the building with cops, then tosses Molatov cocktails inside, making sure that Gin cannot escape the flames.

Gin dies, her funeral is held and life in Ashland goes back to business as usual.

No? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.

My only nitpick about this book was that it seemed a little rushed. The situations facing Gin's friends weren't really allowed enough time to become serious threats and concern us. A really good evil opponent would have allowed some time for despair to set in before the final blow falls.

Poison Promise by Jennifer Estep

 It seems to me as if the Elemental Assassin stories, since Gin Blanco defeated the uber villain, Mab Monroe, has become much like 1960s Batman or Green Hornet serial tv - each week a new and somewhat mediocre bad guy appears, and needs to be dealt with. Instead of systematically dismantling the criminal organization after removing its head, in some sort of sisterly teamwork with Bria, Gin just deals with each minor crisis as it comes, when coincidentally she stumbles into a situation that rouses her white knight instincts (inappropriate for a professional assassin, by the way).

When one of Gin's employees at the Pork Pit is being assaulted by a trio of drug dealers, the Spider steps in and leaves the thugs sprawled and retching on the sidewalk. But these three were minor players in the drug kingpin Beauregard Benson's organization, and when Gin later witnesses one of them being terminated with extreme prejudice by the boss himself, she ends up even more involved. As might be expected, there's a new, dangerous, and highly addictive drug on the street now, which is somehow being juiced up by magical means.

Gin's newfound reluctance to kill people unless they deserve it, either for attacking her, or for attacking her friends or family, keeps her from doing anything about Benson until it becomes clear that he will kill both her sister and her employee to keep them from bringing a criminal case against him. When she dashes off to rescue them from an ambush by the thugs, she ends up being captured and tortured, as expected, but finds an unlikely ally in the drug lord's lair who helps her to escape, so she can live to fight another day.

Hopefully Gin will take a more aggressive stance on taking out the garbage in Ashland in the next book in the series.

Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep

I think that Estep is focusing on her new young adult series. Heart of Venom is possibly the weakest book in the Elemental Assassin series. An old enemy of Jo Jo and Sophia has returned and kidnapped Sophia, nearly killing Jo Jo in the process, while Gin stands nearly helplessly by. Gin vows to get Sophia back. A recurring flaw in the world-building rears its head again here when they need to find someone to heal Jo Jo, and must turn to her boyfriend, an untrained (at least in the healing application) air elemental. Jo Jo is the only Air elemental healer in all of Ashland? Really?

Gin regresses to her earlier lone wolf exploits and goes off half-cocked to attack the bad guy, Harold Grimes, in his mountain lair. The attempt is only partially successful, and she is captured and tortured until she finally figures out a sneaky way to escape, nearly dying again in the process. The whole book seems to be more about her reunion with Owen and the resulting sex scene than much of anything else useful, except...Mab's heir appears on the scene at the end, setting the scene for the next book.

If you're following the series, you've got to read it to keep up, but there's not a lot of substance here.

Deadly Sting by Jennifer Estep

This story wastes very little time getting deadly. Gin and Finn go shopping for a party dress, so that they can attend the biggest fling in recent Ashland history, the unveiling of the art treasures which used to belong to Mab Monroe, before The Spider removed her from the land of the living. It almost feels like Estep got a little impatient about properly setting the stage for any mystery in the story; she begins by using a violent confrontation in a dress shop to reveal that many of the giants who work security in Ashland have suspiciously left their posts, but lets us find out why a couple of dozen pages later, when it turns out they have all been recruited by a giantess criminal mastermind, Clementine, to rob the Briartop museum of its art, as well as Mab's collection.

While the giants are about their dirty deeds, they take the fortuitous opportunity to kill Gin Blanco, the infamous Spider, as well, keeping her from interfering with their plans and also making some of Ashland's underworld figures very very happy. Will rumors of the Spider's demise be greatly exaggerated? Will Gin be only "mostly dead" all day? I think we all know that Estep isn't quite ready to kill off her heroine just yet, so it will not come as a major spoiler to say that the Spider is more than happy to spoil all of the giant gang's plans, in the most spectacular and bloody of fashions.

Funny, once again, to see Gin manage to totally trash a dress worth thousands of dollars as she takes on all comers. Of course, Gin's former lover, Owen, is at the big party when the giants crash it, as well, and most of her other friends are attending, too, so she gets to deal with the emotional rift between them while slicing and dicing giant gizzards. Matters remain still mostly unresolved on this front - you know Gin's not allowed to be deliriously happy for long.

All's well as end's blowing things up, and this is a really quick, fun read for all you regulars at the Pork Pit.

Widow's Web by Jennifer Estep

Gin Blanco is still dealing with the steady stream of thugs, mugs and wannabees (I'm minded of Hedley's hiring list in Blazing Saddles) who believe they have what it takes to take out the infamous Spider. She checks over her barbecue restaurant, The Port Pit, daily for traps before she opens up for her employees - oddly, though Estep spends some time at the beginning of the book describing this, we never do meet any of those employees, aside from Sophia, the Goth dwarf. But that turns out to be the least of her worries when her personal life and professional life finally face a challenge together.

Her boyfriend, Owen's ex-fiancee, Sarina, has returned to Ashland, and not only still has feelings for Owen, she behaves as if she never left, and thinks they can pick right up where they left off. To make matters worse, she's a strong water elemental who is bent on revenge against all of the folks who stood by and watched her father be murdered by Mab Monroe, many years ago. She has outlived three wealthy husbands in the meantime, hence the title of the book.

It appears that there was a time when Owen and his sister were homeless, and had a little Oliver Twist-ish gang of their own. Owen and his best friend, Phillip Kincaid, ran a burglary ring to support themselves and Owen's sister, Eva. On one of their expeditions to case a house before burglarizing it, Owen met Sarina, whose father Benedict was a minor crime boss, and they fell in love. After her father was killed, she moved in with Owen, Phil and Eva, and things were going well until Sarina turned out to be a sociopath, the gang broke up, and she left town suddenly, not to be seen until just now, after Mab Monroe's death has opened up new criminal opportunities.

Owen still has some feelings for Sarina (it wouldn't be a conflict otherwise, would it?), and doesn't believe she's truly evil. Phil and Eva know better, and after some convincing tell all to Gin. So Gin is in the precarious position of preventing Sarina from fulfilling her evil plans, without destroying her relationship with Owen by playing the jealous girlfriend.

I do love some of the descriptions of Gin's southern comfort food that she prepares when there's trouble brewing:

"Flour, fresh buttemilk, and just a pinch of sugar and salt went into my biscuit dough, while I put a cast-iron pan into the oven to heat the shortening I'd coated it with. Once the shortening was melted, I cut the biscuit dough into rounds, coated both sides with the liquefied shortening, arranged them in a pan, and then slid the whole thing into the oven to bake. I also fired some some salty country ham, using the grease and drippings that were left in the pan, along with some evaporated milk and a generous dash of black pepper, to make my gravy."

Oh yeah. The Spider rocks!

By a Thread by Jennifer Estep

Here's another adventure with the infamous assassin, The Spider, aka Gin Blanco. Gin really needs a vacation. After killing Mab Monroe, word has gotten out about her secret identity, and she has had to work twice as hard at The Pork Pit, grilling barbecue and killing all the thugs who want to enhance their reputation by taking down The Spider. Fletcher finally convinces her to take some time off, so she and her baby sister, detective Bria Coolidge, head south to the coast for some fun in the sun; Owen and Fletcher will join them later.

Bria grew up and first became a detective in the small resort town of Blue Marsh, on the Georgia-South Carolina border, and her best friend, Callie Reyes, who owns a restaurant there, is engaged to be married. Gin and Bria have a quiet first day in town, shopping and playing tourist (which doesn't come naturally to Gin), but when they visit Callie's restaurant, things begin to...go south in a hurry?

An evil real estate developer, who is also a very old vampire, wants Callie's property to build an all-inclusive resort, and he won't take "No" for an answer. He sends a pair of bruisers to intimidate her, but the two clowns are no match for Gin. She leaves them unconscious but still alive, and offers to keep the vampire, Dekes, from bothering her sister's friend any more. Callie turns her down, as she thinks she can handle things herself, with the help of her fiancee, a local cop who turns out to be...wait for it..Donovan...Gin's ex-lover.

But when the two enforcers show up in the middle of the night with a couple of their buddies at the hotel to rape and murder Gin and Bria, The Spider decides to take care of things on her own, whether she's been invited or not. Owen and Fletcher show up the next day, and the fearsome foursome from Ashland get to work on a plan. It's a pitiful plan, getting themselves invited to a press conference Dekes is holding to announce his new project, and we've seen the same scenario before in the Elemental Assassin story. If you take a look at the page number when Gin goes after Dekes, you know it really can't be over this fast, so there must be some facts not in evidence.

Gin gets her butt kicked badly by Dekes, once again having to use her frost elemental magic to escape his clutches. Nearly dead, she stumbles back to the rental house she shares with Bria, Owen and Finnegan. Amazingly, the dynamic dwarf sisters have arrived in the nick o' time, so someone is there to heal Gin from her misadventure.

You might have gathered from the preceding bit of snark that I'm a little disillusioned by this story. There was nothing really new, exciting, bold, or innovative in this story; we've seen it all before from Gin Blanco and Company. The only thing that moves the plot arc forward is that she's finally able to reconcile her emotions about Donovan, she and Bria come to a better understanding,  and she faces the reality that she may be destined to become a crusader for the downtrodden, and not an amoral assassin, after all.

Spider's Revenge by Jennifer Estep

  Spider's Revenge is the fifth book in the Elemental Assassin series by Estep. As the story begins, Gin is on the rooftop of Mab Monroe's mansion, where a dinner party is beginning, in the middle of winter, with a crossbow at the ready and a small hole bored in the window, waiting to loose the bolt that will kill Mab and end their conflict at last. Ok, so you realize that if this succeeds, the story will be over, basically, and the book will be about twenty five pages long, so you can be certain that something is about to go horribly wrong. Just as Gin fires the crossbow, one of Mab's giant servants leans in to give her a message, and takes the crossbow bolt in the head, instead of Gin's target.

Much excitement ensues, and Gin is forced to flee the rooftop of the mansion, then its grounds, through the snow, with enemies round about. She almost makes it out when she is knocked nearly senseless by a woman who looks old enough to be her grandmother. Mab's dinner guests turn out to be a couple of dozen bounty hunters who have been brought into town to capture or kill Gin and anyone she is associated with. Gin manages to turn the tables on the elderly yet still quite spry bounty hunter and her youthful protege, and forbears to kill either one of them. I predicted at this point that her mercy would become crucial to the plot later on, and ...well, duh.

When Gin realizes what's going on with Mab and her hirelings, she decides she must kill Mab before any of her friends are captured, tortured or killed in order to gain leverage with her, so she decides to tempt fate once again by attending a costume ball where Mab is expected, hoping to get the jump on the fire elemental. She tries to keep her friends out of things, but they're all a little too stubborn for her. Just before she goes off to the party, her sister Bria pours a great deal of her ice elemental power into a silverstone ring that Gin wears to remind her of her family (this becomes important later - another point of prediction) Owen escorts her to the party, and Finn hangs around as a wheelman to make a quick getaway. Gin has her desired battle royale with Mab, just outside the ladies' room, and (since the book is only halfway done) her skills are not sufficient to kill Mab at this time, and she is forced to flee, wounded and weary, once again.

Mab's bounty hunters begin the hunt in earnest at this point, and Gin and her friends head for their safe house. Finn and Bria, however, do not answer Gin's frantic phone call telling them to get away from her deceased mentor, Fletcher's, house. They have chosen this moment, for plot reasons, to finally realize they are actually quite fond of each other, so fond, in fact, that they are caught en flagrante when the bounty hunters surround the house. Gin tries to rescue them herself, but they are surprised by, once again, the old bounty huntress and her young ward (whom Gin has treated with kindness one more time by now - gave the kid some home made cookies). The bounty hunters take Bria away, and Gin knows it's time for the final showdown.

Estep is a good writer, very entertaining, but unfortunately far too many of the plot elements in this climactic episode were utterly and inescapably...predictable.

A Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

This is the first book in a new young adult series by Estep, who has had great success with her Elemental Assassin series for (more or less) adults, called Mythos Academy. Gwen Frost is a new student at the Mythos Academy, where the descendents of the heroes of old, such as the Valkyries and Spartans, send their spoiled, rich children to be educated, trained in the tradition of fighting against evil. Gwen's family are Gypsies, and she had to leave her "normal" school when her mother died in a car accident, to attend with others who have either magical or martial talents (Hogwarts, U.S.A?).

There seems to be some tie-in with the Elemental Assassin series, as this novel takes place near Ashland, where Gin Blanco and her friends live, and there's even some mention of The Pork Pit, Gin's BBQ joint. Gwen has no friends at the school, and is shunned by most of the students there, for her lack of social standing, and her obvious poverty. She has an ability to find lost items, and get flashes of psychic impressions from objects that she touches, and as the novel begins she is using her talent, for pay, to find a lost charm bracelet for one of the popular kids.

When there is a murder in the Mythos Academy library, where Gwen works, and she is a witness to the event, she begins to use her talent, and a touch of natural nosiness and sneakiness, to investigate the affair on her own. She acquires a few unlikely allies among the students, and the more dangerous things get, the more stubbornly she pokes and prods at things.

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of young adult fiction. This one has all the usual elements for success: a social misfit heroine, bullies and braggarts, teen cliques and adults who refuse to tell Gwen everything she wants to know when she wants to know it. I'm sure it will be enjoyed by the Twilight and Harry Potter crowd, though it's not my cup of tea. Estep is a great writer, who will surely keep the quality high and the action interesting throughout the rest of the series.

Tangled Threads by Jennifer Estep

Ms. Estep was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the fourth book in her Elemental Assassin series to review, so I'm here to give you the early buzz on Tangled Threads.

Gin Blanco's arch-enemy, Mab Monroe, has hired another professional assassin, from a family of assassins (Like the Flying Wallendas?) to kill The Spider. The assassin is also a woman, called LaFleur, and uses a variant on air elemental skills, electrocution, as well as her formidable physical skills, to make her kills. Gin is investigating one of Mab's drug dealing minions down by the docks when the first trap is set, but her gut instinct tells her there's something wrong with the setup, and she witnesses LaFleur murder the hapless fool who is bait for the snare.

So now Gin and her friends must figure out how to take down LaFleur before she kills Gin. Gin begins to investigate, and finds out that one of the bartenders at Northern Exposure, Vinnie, an immigrant from the Soviet bloc, has been passing information along to Monroe. Monroe kidnaps his daughter, and Gin's need to save the innocent complicates things further.

LaFleur is, if not romantically, sexually involved with one of Mab's lieutenants whose son Gin killed in an earlier book, and he convinces the assassin to kill Gin Blanco, the restaurant owner, as well, only on the grounds that she had a run-in with his son earlier in which he lost face. So Gin is a target for two reasons, though none of the bad guys knows she is The Spider. Mab also has reasons to want Gin's sister, the policewoman, dead, and Gin also needs to find a way to protect her baby sister, Bria.

Gin's relationship with Owen Grayson goes through some evolution in this volume. It becomes apparent to her eventually that he's not put off by her alter ego and is more than eager to help in her crusade against the Monroe mob. We see some hope that Gin might once again feel loved and part of a "family" again.

One of the things I wondered about while reading this book was exactly how Gin gets trained in her elemental magic. In one scene, she creates some delicate lockpicks out of ice, but most of the time she just uses the brute force approach or creates knives out of ice. There's a bit where an ice elemental bartender at Northern Aggression creates the entire bar setup out of ice, and keeps it maintained with his magic. It seems like Gin might have wanted to consult with him for some tips. She doesn't seem to spend time with any ice elementals, at least as it's mentioned in the books, and I just wonder how she could go about perfecting her skills.

In fact, none of the elementals in these books really seem to do a whole lot more with their magic than create some huge blast of power to battle with other elementals, or temporarily raise the power to intimidate someone. One exception is Gin's friend, the dwarven healer, who seems to be able to do quite delicate healing and cosmetic surgery with her power. Shouldn't Gin spend more time with her, at least understanding the principles of control, even if it's a different element? All Jo-Jo seems to say to her is basically, "you are strong in the Force, young Skywalker".

Another thing that I thought was odd was that Gin has, throughout the books, used her stone elemental power to check her surroundings for evil intent. Even when she enters her own home, she checks the stones, and is able to determine that no one has come around while she's gone with an intent to do her harm. But at one point in the book, when she checks the pavement around her restaurant, the Pork Pit, she detects no bad vibes. A little later on, we discover that the assassin, LaFleur, had been around to check the place out. Why couldn't Gin detect that?

Overall, a great book, and I'm hoping to see the next book, Spider's Revenge, soon

Venom by Jennifer Estep

The third in the Elemental Assassin series sure knows how to show a guy a good time! Gin Blanco is up to her usual murder and mayhem here. Jonah McAllister still suspects that Gin may have had something to do with the death of his son, and he enlists the aid of another of Mab Monroe's thugs, the giant Elliot Slater, to beat the truth out of her as this novel begins. Ironically, she is saved from being beaten to death by Slater and his giant goons by Monroe, herself, who can't believe that anyone would endure the type of beating they'd already delivered if she could say anything to make it stop.

Next, Gin finds out that Roslyn, the vampire madam of Northern Agression, is being stalked by Slater. As the story unfolds, we find out that he has a habit of choosing "girlfriends" whom he can intimidate, rape, and murder. His association with Monroe keeps him from being prosecuted for his transgressions.

A further twist is thrown into the web when detective Bria Coolidge comes to town to replace Gin's old flame, Donovan Caine. She's another crusader, and her gathering of information on Monroe's nefarious doings has put her on the list of Slater's targets. Bria also happens to be Gin's long-lost sister, whom she thought dead until recently. Gin needs to figure out how to deal with her sister, and how to break the news to her that Gin is alive, as well.

Her relationship with Owen Grayson is about to be taken to a new level, as well. At the beginning of the story, Gin isn't sure she wants to get involved with him, but agrees to a date...sometime. Grayson's dogged pursuit of her, and some interesting personal history of his own, however, force Gin to reveal more about herself, and become more vulnerable, than she'd intended.

Lots of good action, a good plot, and learning more about some of Gin's other friends make this a great read. Can't wait for Tangled Threads.

Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep

So, our favorite assassin is retired now. After the death of her surrogate father and handler, Fletcher Lane, she inherited a great deal of his money, as well as his home, and the restaurant he operated, the Pork Pit, so in deference to his wishes and because she really doesn't have to, Gin Blanco is trying to go straight.

Unfortunately, the thugs around town have other ideas. When the son of a local bigshot lawyer tied to the vicious fire elemental Mab Monroe decides to get unruly in her restaurant, she has to put him down, hard, after he threatens to kill her and a couple of her customers. When she presses charges for attempted robbery, his father decides to make her life miserable.

To make it even harder, a damsel in distress (isn't it usually a guy hero supposed to rescue those sorts?) shows up on Gin's doorstep and is the target of a professional assassin, who shoots up the windows in the Pork Pit. Kind of a rough week for the bbq business. Gin decides to investigate, to find out why the girl is under attack, and things get even rougher when she finds out that a dwarf coal mining magnate who has ties to Mab Monroe, also, is after the girl's grandfather's land. When the grandfather in question turns out to be an old friend of Fletcher's, the die is cast, and Gin has to bring back all her old skills, and acquire a few more, to take care of the bad guys and their brute squads.

More complications come from her fire and ice relationship with Donovan Caine, and we get to know some of her allies, the dwarf Deveraux sisters, a little bit better, as well as experiencing with Gin a few flashbacks to when she got involved with Fletcher, and became the assassin's apprentice. Good stuff, I need to pick up Venom soon.

Spider's Bite by Jennifer Estep

So, why do most of the heroines in contemporary urban fantasy have to have some sort of tortured past? Aren't crusading women ever just happy? Why can't we all just get along?

That said (or asked), I did enjoy Estep's first novel in the Elemental Assassin series, and even tried to run out and buy the sequel, but it was nowhere to be found in the brick and mortar bookstores locally. I'll have to hit Amazon one of these days, when I'm feeling ambitious.

Gin is a paid assassin, known by the nickname of The Spider - highly paid, by the way. She's also got some elemental magic to add to her killing ways, though she never uses it on the job; it would feel like cheating, as if she wasn't good enough without it. The situation she ends up in pretty quickly in this novel, she's gonna need every advantage to defeat the folks who are out to destroy her.

Gin is contracted to kill an executive at a large corporation, Gordon Giles, suspected of embezzling from the most ruthless businessperson in town, Mab Monroe - a fire elemental. When she gets to the place she's selected to take him down, there's another assassin waiting for her, she's been betrayed by the person who placed the contract. The person responsible also tortures and kills her handler and adopted father, Fletcher, and Fletcher's natural son, Flynn, is next on the list for a visit from the bad guys...well, relatively speaking, bad.

In order to survive and catch the perpetrators, Gin has to ally herself with a police detective, Donovan Caine, who would like to take her out of the picture, himself. It seems that The Spider had a contract to kill his partner the year before. The partner was a rotten person, but somehow Donovan didn't know about it, though he seems to be a bit of a boy scout, himself, yet old enough to know better. To further complicate things, Donovan and Gin feel more than a spark of physical attraction for each other, which threatens to burst into flames, given the right tinder.

I've always been somewhat fond of assassins as anti-heroes, so I got a kick out of this book. It was a little predictable, but Estep has a little different slant on the usual run of monsters available for urban fantasy, using vampires, dwarves and elementals as the leaven in the human dough. The entertainment was worth the price of admission.