Gunmetal Magic

Gunmetal Magic (2012) Ilona Andrews

This is Andrea’s story–a continuation of “Magic Mourns” and Magic Slays and occurs parallel to events in “Magic Gifts“. It’s really book 5 1/2 of the Kate Daniels’ series.

Andrea is working with Kate at Cutting Edge Investigations, and trying to avoid Raphael–the bouda who was her mate and who believes she rejected him and everything he believes in for the Order–an organization that kicked her out when it discovered she was a shape-shifter.

“Barabas, open the damn door,” Raphael snarled.

Barabas slid the shutter closed. “Do you want me to let him in?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Barabas slid the shutter open. “She’s thinking about it.”

“Andrea,” Raphael called. “Let me in.”

“The last time I saw you two together, you were so happy,” Barabas said. “Just out of curiosity, Raphael, how the hell did you manage to fuck that up?”

I’m actually delighted we get to spend more time with Barabas.

When four shape-shifters are discovered dead at one of Raphael’s worksites, Jim (head of Pack security) asks Andrea to look into it, since Kate is in the middle of something else.

“I can’t ask the Consort to look into it, because A) she and Curran are working on something else and B) when the Consort gets involved, half of the world blows up.”

I actually quite like their intern, who they are supposed to redeem so the Pack doesn’t kill him for insubordinatino and failure to follow the rules.

“Ave, Andrea! Ianitori te salutant!”

Hail, Andrea, those who janitor salute you.

Kate was forcing Ascanio and Julie, her ward, to learn Latin, because a lot of historical magical texts were written in it and apparently it was an essential part of their education. Since the lessons were conducted in the office during our copious spare time, I was learning the language along with them.

I pointed at Ascanio. “Not another word. Latin is a dead language, but that doesn’t mean you get to molest its corpse. Finish sweeping, ianitor.”

He’s actually good for Andrea since he has a sense of humor and is someone for her to look after.

I also like the Andrea is an actual investigator, doing things like going through the trash, going to the library, and taking to the janitors.

I looked up and nodded at Ascanio. “Get your gear.”

He grabbed his knife. “Where are we going?”

“To the library.”

His enthusiasm visibly deflated and he emitted a tragic sigh. “But ‘library’ and ‘kick-ass’ are two concepts that don’t usually go together.”

“That’s the nature of the business. Five percent of the time you are killing monsters. The rest of the time, we’re digging through the dirt for a tiny piece of the perpetrator’s pubic hair.”

And, we get to spend more time with Roman, the priest of Chernobog, who we met in the previous book.

For being an evil priest of an evil dark god, Roman seemed surprisingly normal. Either he was hiding his evilness really well, or it really was just a job for him. Priest of darkness, nine to five. It’s just the family business.

I like Roman.

“You will not pass!” Roman thundered.

Great. Now he had decided he was Gandalf.

There are some rather odd bits here involving Egyptian Gods. That bit actually feels like the weakest part of this story. It’s not bad, it’s just not as strong as the other portions of the book.

Now, although you can read this book as a stand alone, things are going to make a lot more sense and flow better if you’ve read the Kate series as well as “Magic Mourns”. It’s also important if you want to fully understand what’s going on in the next book. I’d actually started the next book, realized I’d missed this one, then realized also that I needed the short story to clarify everything in my memory.

But for once they got a good cover!

Published by Ace

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