The Reading Jackalope

Two plot lines here. First in the A plot Kitty deals with two werewolves who’ve recently come home from war. They were turned over there and used as super soldiers, though in a great twist not by the government but by an overenthusiastic soldier who dies over there. And since they’ve lost their leader, and the one person who made the werewolf thing make since they go crazy. Out of the small squadron of six, only one of the soldiers makes it. I think this was a pretty harsh, if accurate, look at what happens when we send young men (and women) out to do terrible things and then expect them to come home like nothing happened.

The B plot deals with Cormac, the over arching plot of the Long Game in this set of books, and radio personalities and what they face. Kitty gets sued for libel, and honestly I’m shocked it hasn’t happened sooner. Of course, this being urban fantasy the libel suit isn’t what it appears and is instead an attack on Denver. Who is behind the attack is unclear, though Roman is certainly implicated. The wizard who instigates the attack, a major blizzard that would destroy the city, is the person who is suing Kitty for libel. We also find a little bit more about what happened to Cormac while he was in prison. I thought the fact that he’s now sharing his body with a dead British wizard was accepted a little too quickly by both Kitty and Ben. It’s weird and I thought that bit of information was dropped on the reader and then passed over as the book wrapped up. However, it’s also a plot point I figured out early on, and I was wondering if we’d get a story line where Cormac is actually possessed and there has to be an exorcism.

All in all, another enjoyable addition to the books, though this one felt a little more like a ‘gather the threads for the big showdown’ type book then one with any major plots. I was also a little sad that there wasn’t really a whole lot of Kitty dealing with the events of the last book. We sort of got in the beginning where she has nightmares, but that was dropped the moment the soldier werewolves, and thus the plot, showed up. I suppose you could argue that Kitty dealt with it by taking care of other people, but that isn’t really dealing with it, it’s shoving it down.