You will need to read the first book in this series Unholy Ghosts in order to understand Chess as a character, her relationships as well as the Church's rule in this world or BT (before truth).
Chess Putnam finds herself helping out the Black squad when she is poisoned, almost dies and that doesn't even count the murderous ghost wanting to kill her. Chess' next assignment should be a straightforward debunking of a celebrity's home but Chess' secret life threatens to get in the way. Prostitutes being killed in an extremely gruesome way in Downside and it's hurting more than Bump's profits. Someone is dealing in sex and the supernatural but that is just another day in Downside until murder is thrown in. It's not a turf war, even enemies are willing to work together to find who is responsible and all that responsibility is about to fall on to Chess.
Alright it was quite a few years ago that I read the first book in this series. I do not know why I did not pick up this book sooner. I re-read the review I wrote at the time and it was glowing, so really not sure, so with fresh eyes and opinions I started this series again and extremely happy that I did. This book was awesome. It had everything I wanted in an Urban Fantasy book; dark, gritty, magic, ghosts, a post apocalyptic feel to it and a great female lead who is not your norm. It had me glued to my seat to say the least.
Chess is a mess (sorry for the rhyme but she truly is). She is a drug addict that is mixed up with gangs, pimps and enforcers. She tries to hide all of this from the Church her employer and her "friends" at the church, as all these things will get her fired. On top of that to help pay her debts to Bump (the pimp) she uses her Church trained magic to help out with problems that are occurring in Downside. Chess is really hard on herself and most of this has to do with her childhood or lack there of. We get snippets of what Chess endured as a child and none of it was good until she was shown to have some talent for magic and could study at the Church. The church is her whole life but she risks it every day to keep her past demons at bay with her drug use.
I really appreciate that Kane does not shy away from Chess' drug use; her reasons for taking drugs, how often she gets high, all her money goes to it, her constant thought of how long she has before she comes down and what withdrawal symptoms that Chess experiences. All of these factors are not glossed over or downplayed in this book and I applaud Kane for not romanticizing Chess' drug use. Using the drugs is part of who Chess is in this series and while I hope she gets some help as I have grown attached to her as a character I do not think that she will.
I like that Kane has Chess focus on two different cases at once, as it forces Chess to choose sometimes between her habit and her work and also in both books I have read so far the cases are interesting. The Church case is a debunking one in which a celebrity claims to have a haunted house. While the case may have been a bit more straightforward and I was able to figure most of it out, it was still interesting (debunking in general is really interesting). The extremely interesting case is the one of the dead prostitutes that are occurring in downside, this also brings Lex and Terrible in close proximity of each other which Chess is trying to avoid at all costs. I was not able to figure out what was occurring in this case and lets say that Kane gets pretty creative with ghosts and magic for this one.
Kane has done a great job of re-piquing my interest with this series (like I said it was awhile ago when I read the first) and I find this book not only creative and refreshing as it combines ghosts and magic (I don't read enough ghosts books I think). I'm excited to pick up the next book in this series and one thing about waiting to so long to come back to this series is I don't have to wait :)
Enjoy!!!
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