Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge
Series: Black London
Publisher: St Martin's, 2009
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4 pints of blood
The cover was done by Chris McGrath, and therefore appeals to me. I'm sorry, I'm an unabashed McGrath fangirl. He always manages to make the characters look like they're supposed to, puts clothes on them, and gives a lovely dark moodiness to the whole thing. More than once I've bought a book because I couldn't stop staring at the McGrath cover. And yes, I'm gushing, but really, these are what urban fantasy covers should look like, as opposed to a tight leather pants on a posing tush. I'm just sayin'. This one's perhaps a bit dark for my liking, but I love all the detail work. Jack's bleached spiky hair and tattoos, the witchfire, the fog over London, and Pete managing to straddle the line between being pretty and being someone you wouldn't want to mess with.
Twelve years ago, Jack Winter brought sixteen-year-old Pete Caldecutt (who, in spite of the name, is a chick) into a crypt to help him with a summoning. Something went horribly wrong, though, and Jack wound up dead, leaving young Pete traumatized and unsure of what she's witnessed.
As an adult, Pete is a police detective, working hard to live up to her father's reputation and to block out the memories of Jack's death. She doesn't know exactly what happened that day, but Jack's death still haunts her. When someone starts kidnapping children, Pete is desperate to find them, in spite of her intuition telling her she won't manage it in time. She's desperate enough to follow up on a shady tip, which leads her to meet with Jack, very much alive, who tells her when and where to find the first of the children before taking off again.
When he turns out to be right, Pete hunts him down in the flophouse where he's crashed. Twelve years have turned him from the magnetic young man she remembers into a bitter junkie, angry at Pete for some wrong she's apparently done him in the past, although he refuses to talk about it. Pete doesn't have time for his hatred, though; she needs to find those children, and he can help her do it.
The two enter into a reluctant partnership, each determined to get what they need and leave it there. Solving this case will take Pete deep into a world she's been denying for twelve years, though, into the Black London, where magic rules and the bad guys win more often than she's used to. The more she learns about magic and the Black London, the closer she gets to discovering the truth about herself and what exactly happened during that summoning gone wrong. And while they might not exactly trust each other, Pete and Jack will have to stick together if they want to get through this thing alive.
One of the things that makes Street Magic stand out from the hoardes of dark urban fantasy out there is that it's set in London. Which y'all determined from the "Black London" series title, but before you start rolling your eyes at me, it actually makes more of a difference than you'd think setting the books on a different continent. The language is different, the attitudes are different, and the whole feel of the book is different just by putting the characters in London rather than metropolitan US.
Jack and Pete both make for appealing characters, and the chemistry between them is very fun, the epitome of slap slap kiss. They can never quite decide whether they hate each other or care about each other, and either one leads to heated arguments, as two people with very different backgrounds and morals try to figure out how best to deal with the supernatural menace.
As a side note, I'm not entirely sure why I liked Jack as much as I did. He's not a nice man by any stretch of the imagination, but he's oddly charming and I found him unexpectedly endearing. For her part, Pete isn't as straight as she'd like to think (in the "cop follows all laws and has high morals" sort of way, not the "harbouring lesbian tendancies" sort of way although I didn't really see her interact much with other women, so can't say for sure on that one). She has a temper and isn't afraid to get violent if she thinks the occasion calls for it. Shoplifting is right out, though.
I really enjoyed the depth of the world here. Without growing overwhelming, there are plenty of hints of a broader society, both in the human world and the supernatural one, which I imagine will turn into plot points as the series progresses. This is one of those worlds that feels like nearly anything could happen, and there's probably something lurking just around the corner, which may or may not have nasty teeth.
Basically, Street Magic was a really fun read in an involving universe, and Black London has been added to my series watch list. This is dark urban fantasy at its most addictive.
Street Magic is available today in mass market paperback
.
Publisher: St Martin's, 2009
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4 pints of blood
The cover was done by Chris McGrath, and therefore appeals to me. I'm sorry, I'm an unabashed McGrath fangirl. He always manages to make the characters look like they're supposed to, puts clothes on them, and gives a lovely dark moodiness to the whole thing. More than once I've bought a book because I couldn't stop staring at the McGrath cover. And yes, I'm gushing, but really, these are what urban fantasy covers should look like, as opposed to a tight leather pants on a posing tush. I'm just sayin'. This one's perhaps a bit dark for my liking, but I love all the detail work. Jack's bleached spiky hair and tattoos, the witchfire, the fog over London, and Pete managing to straddle the line between being pretty and being someone you wouldn't want to mess with.
Twelve years ago, Jack Winter brought sixteen-year-old Pete Caldecutt (who, in spite of the name, is a chick) into a crypt to help him with a summoning. Something went horribly wrong, though, and Jack wound up dead, leaving young Pete traumatized and unsure of what she's witnessed.
As an adult, Pete is a police detective, working hard to live up to her father's reputation and to block out the memories of Jack's death. She doesn't know exactly what happened that day, but Jack's death still haunts her. When someone starts kidnapping children, Pete is desperate to find them, in spite of her intuition telling her she won't manage it in time. She's desperate enough to follow up on a shady tip, which leads her to meet with Jack, very much alive, who tells her when and where to find the first of the children before taking off again.
When he turns out to be right, Pete hunts him down in the flophouse where he's crashed. Twelve years have turned him from the magnetic young man she remembers into a bitter junkie, angry at Pete for some wrong she's apparently done him in the past, although he refuses to talk about it. Pete doesn't have time for his hatred, though; she needs to find those children, and he can help her do it.
The two enter into a reluctant partnership, each determined to get what they need and leave it there. Solving this case will take Pete deep into a world she's been denying for twelve years, though, into the Black London, where magic rules and the bad guys win more often than she's used to. The more she learns about magic and the Black London, the closer she gets to discovering the truth about herself and what exactly happened during that summoning gone wrong. And while they might not exactly trust each other, Pete and Jack will have to stick together if they want to get through this thing alive.
One of the things that makes Street Magic stand out from the hoardes of dark urban fantasy out there is that it's set in London. Which y'all determined from the "Black London" series title, but before you start rolling your eyes at me, it actually makes more of a difference than you'd think setting the books on a different continent. The language is different, the attitudes are different, and the whole feel of the book is different just by putting the characters in London rather than metropolitan US.
Jack and Pete both make for appealing characters, and the chemistry between them is very fun, the epitome of slap slap kiss. They can never quite decide whether they hate each other or care about each other, and either one leads to heated arguments, as two people with very different backgrounds and morals try to figure out how best to deal with the supernatural menace.
As a side note, I'm not entirely sure why I liked Jack as much as I did. He's not a nice man by any stretch of the imagination, but he's oddly charming and I found him unexpectedly endearing. For her part, Pete isn't as straight as she'd like to think (in the "cop follows all laws and has high morals" sort of way, not the "harbouring lesbian tendancies" sort of way although I didn't really see her interact much with other women, so can't say for sure on that one). She has a temper and isn't afraid to get violent if she thinks the occasion calls for it. Shoplifting is right out, though.
I really enjoyed the depth of the world here. Without growing overwhelming, there are plenty of hints of a broader society, both in the human world and the supernatural one, which I imagine will turn into plot points as the series progresses. This is one of those worlds that feels like nearly anything could happen, and there's probably something lurking just around the corner, which may or may not have nasty teeth.
Basically, Street Magic was a really fun read in an involving universe, and Black London has been added to my series watch list. This is dark urban fantasy at its most addictive.
Street Magic is available today in mass market paperback
.