Dante Valentine’s life was changed forever when she took a job working for the devil. In order to escape with her life, her Fallen lover turned her into his hedaira, granting her strength and power she couldn’t even comprehend. In a vengeful twist of fate, Japhrimel is nothing more than ashes in an urn and now, a year later, Dante remains heartbroken and grieving, wishing and hoping Japhrimel lives somewhere somehow. And trying to figure out the limit of her powers, which is quite a mystery.
Still deeply in love with her, Jace Monroe followed her back home to Saint City in an effort to gain her forgiveness for his past sins…and hopefully to win back her heart. Even with the specter of Japhrimel heavy in the air, Jace is willing stay with her and settle for watching her back on bounty hunts, simply being her partner. Someone needs to, because Dante is hell-bent for leather when it comes to her job. It’s either drown herself in work, or break under the strain of guilt. It’s her fault Japhrimel is dead. She can’t be what Jace wants, and her friends almost died because of her near-suicidal mission.
Things seem fairly well set into this pattern until a far more distant piece of her past comes back to haunt her. As the abandoned daughter of drug addicts -- and a psion -- she was placed in an educational facility for development of her power. Rigger Hall, and the abuse she suffered there, is a nightmare. Try as she might this is the one thing Dante can’t escape from, and right now she can’t afford to. Her friend Gabe brings her in on a handful of new cases: a serial killer is hitting too close to home. Found dead in the most gruesome ways, the victims are former students of Rigger Hall.
To complicate matters, notes begin appearing bearing Lucifer's wax seal.
Like her previous novel, Dead Man Rising has a good chunk taken up by the hunt, character development, and the ever-growing complexities of Danny's situation. However, it’s worth it in the end when the fast-paced action kicks into high gear. Granted, I guessed the killer’s identity early on when Dante wades into the middle of yet another suicide run, but the why of it isn’t even close to being obvious and worth the time to find out.
Dante is still the (un)loveable hard-ass, but she is far more fallible in this storyline. An unresolved love affair, the death of her lover, and a past straight out of hell coming home to roost…that would definitely change a character’s code of conduct. Dante’s newfound ability to not see the obvious staring her in the face is the most frustrating part of the game. This reader wanted to give her a hard smack in the face for being dense as a fencepost, but in a good way since it really adds to the tension and unpredictable resolutions.
I think that’s one of the traits I find so attractive with this series: unpredictability. If the author has no problem throwing caution to wind by killing off a major character, I’m an instant fan. It may be very distressing but it makes for fine, addictive reading.
Yet another wonderful, highly recommended novel by a very talented author. I can’t wait for the next in the series, The Devil's Right Hand.
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Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Warner Books (September 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0446616710
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Visit the author’s website: http://www.lilithsaintcrow.net