Vaughn, Carrie: Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (2009)
Writer: Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 282
I've been waiting over a YEAR for Carrie Vaughn's latest installment of her Kitty series. And for the past month, I've been keeping and eye on the local bookstores to see if any of them have put it out on the shelf early. The official release date on Amazon is January 27th, but before I went to Barnes and Noble on the 23rd, I noticed they listed the book as in stock, so I promptly went to the store and bought it.
One would think that I would start reading the moment I got my grubby little paws on it, but I hesitated. One, it's a case where you've been waiting for so long you're a little afraid of being disappointed and two, because I knew once I started, I wouldn't stop.
So I lasted until Saturday night before I gave in and settled in with the book. I did have to put the book down to actually go to sleep, but as soon as I woke up the next morning, it was back to the book.
The premise: book five takes Kitty to Vegas, where she not only plans to elope with her mate Ben, but where she also gets to do a live version of her show on television. But the trip isn't anything like she expected: there's a gun convention at the hotel, and some of them know Ben from his bounty-hunting days and don't like Kitty one bit. There's a magician who seems to be the real deal, a Master vampire who's entirely unconcerned with his city, and then there's a suspicious animal show that seems to be made up entirely of lycanthropes, and worse yet, the ring leader has his eye on Kitty, and she's not entirely sure he's friendly.
Spoilers galore!
So I'm noticing a pattern in the series: so far, the books that feature a feline on the cover also happen to take place in a major city. First it was Washington DC, and now Las Vegas. And I'm noticing that for whatever reason, these books are the most traditional of Vaughn's UF offerings, and therefore the weakest. Oh, I liked Kitty Goes to Washington just fine, especially Luis the were-jaguar and the emotional suckerpunch of Kitty transforming on live television. But this book has now taken the place of the weakest in the series. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's the weakest.
Here's why:
1) the setting isn't quite alive as it has been in other novels. Let's face it, it's VEGAS. I haven't been there, but like most everyone else, I've seen more than enough movies and television shows that depict the city and I know what it looks like. Vaughn didn't give me anything new, nothing tangible, and that's a shame. It's not to say she was short on sensory detail, as it was totally there. But like Kitty, the reader feels a little overwhelmed with what's given.
2) Kitty has to be rescued. Twice. The first time when she finds herself in the Band of Tiamat's penthouse and is getting seduced by Balthazar and his band of curious kitties (one of the bounty hunters pulled a fire alarm) and the second when Balthazar and his band of curious kitties are actually attempting to sacrifice her to the goddess Tiamat and the bounty hunters come in blazing, as well as the magician Grant. It wasn't done badly, and certainly, Kitty does make certain decisions to do certain things that lessen some of the danger she finds herself in through-out the book, but regardless, the getting rescued part makes it a weaker book. I didn't mind the first instance, but I wish there'd been a way the second time for her to rescue herself before the bounty hunters came storming in.
3) Sexual discomfort. Vaughn's not a paranormal romance writer, and Kitty's established relationship with Ben is growing on me. They feel like a real couple, and he certainly acts like a real guy (making jokes about seeing certain shows that contain strippers, for example), and the moments between them are believable and solid. You want them to get married. You want them to be happy. Which makes the attention Balthazar bestows on Kitty really, really uncomfortable, because despite the sexiness of the man and his curious kitties, you really don't want her to give in, and you can tell there's something more to this seduction than just hot bodies, you know? Then there's Balthazar's "attempt" at rape which was only to piss Kitty off enough to start her turning into wolf, which would then be the perfect time to kill her for the sacrifice. I'm not going to fault Vaughn at all for using the rape/sexual harassment card, because it made sense here, but I really don't want to experience something like this again. It added little, if nothing, to the story.
4) The plots are all over the place. Some connect and others don't, and based on the end of this book and the opening of the next (which comes out in February, score!), I feel like this book is more of a set-up than its own story. The bounty hunters are there, in the end, to give Kitty some backup. The deal with the Master vampire ends up being closely related to the vampire priestess who's running the whole Tiamat show. Ben getting kidnapped? COMPLETELY UNRELATED. I'm not surprised, but I find myself growing more and more fond of plots that are a bit tighter than the one we got in this book. For Kitty, this felt like one mishap after another, with the only thing relating said mishaps being Vegas.
5) Kitty doesn't grow. One of my FAVORITE things about this series, the thing I think sets this one apart from the other urban fantasies out there and the thing I brag about to everyone when I recommend this series is the fact that with each book, Kitty GROWS. This time, I'm hard-pressed to pinpoint any such growth. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say we did get to examine the fact that Kitty's not entirely comfortable with being an alpha just yet and her submissive nature is still right beneath the surface. Yet, when confronted with the temptation of falling prey to that submissive state, she stands firm and doesn't let them walk all over. That's good, but I had to think about it, which isn't so good.
6) No Cormac. I know, I know, he's in prison and Kitty and Ben are in Vegas, but still... I miss that guy. :)
7) Kitty only transforms once. :(
In Kitty and the Silver Bullet, the reader got a good emotional resolution to the Kitty series so far. She'd come full circle and she'd found some measure of peace. This book feels like the start of a new phase, a new level in the series. There is no emotional sucker-punch here that we got in books two and three, and no emotional resolution like we got in book four. It's okay that this book pretty much has a happy ending, and it makes it a DAMN good thing that book six, Kitty Raises Hell, is coming out so quickly, because I'm really hoping it'll raise the stakes and make me hungry for more. This book doesn't have me hungry for more, but I love the series enough that I'll do for the next what I did with this one: eye the shelves like a hawk so I can snatch it up and devour it right away.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: while I love this series, I have to admit it would've been difficult to follow up on Kitty and the Silver Bullet without seriously freaking the reader out. Book four had such an emotional resolution that I feel book five is starting a new phase, a new level, and this book feels mostly like set up. It's good, but it's not the best of the series at all, and it feels more like traditional UF than Vaughn's books usually do. That said, Vaughn's still one of the best, and I'm naturally looking forward to the next in the series, which comes out the end of February, because I really, really hope Vaughn doesn't pull back on the punches. I want more emotional grit, and I want the stakes to be raised. This book is fun, but for some reason, I was never worried about any of the characters, and I wanted to be.
Cover Commentary: Not much to say on this one. The original rendition of the art had a tattoo on both Kitty's lower back (the tramp-stamp) and between her shoulder blades, but Vaughn asked them to remove the one between her shoulder blades, and they did. Good thing too, because Kitty DOES NOT have any tattoos, so that's a nice compromise. Though the artistic trend is ridiculous: why do artists keep adding tattoos to characters who have none, and then why to they keep adding MORE?
Next up:
Evil Ways by Justin Gustainis
Still working on:
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan and Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan