Book Jacket:
Funny how life can turn you upside down…
My name is Bonita Torres, and eight months ago I was an unemployed college graduate without a plan. Now I’m an investigator with the Private Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations team of New York. Pretty awesome, right?
The Cosa Nostradamus, the magical community, isn’t quick to give up its secrets, though. Not even to fellow members. Not even when it’s in their best interests. So we’ve been busting our tails, perfecting our forensic skills, working to gain acceptance. The team’s tight… but we have our quirks, too. And our Big Dog, Benjamin Venec…well, he’s a special case, all right.
But we can’t give up. We’re needed, especially when a case comes along that threatens to pit human against fatae. But one wrong move could cost us everything we’ve worked for…
Review:
Hard Magic, the first book in the Paranormal Scene Investigations series, was one of those books that doesn’t quite work but had enough promise to warrant a second look at the series. Pack of Lies, the sequel to Hard Magic, is a definite step up, and yet ultimately it too falls short of being a completely satisfying urban fantasy novel. Still, there is enough to Pack of Lies that I had no problem getting to the end.
Whereas Hard Magic was all about setting the stage, introducing the team and their particular magical skills, and long-winded explorations of their forensic magic, Pack of Lies hits the ground running and is a much better story for it. The team is deployed to solve a sexual assault and cross-species murder, and the investigation gives the story a firm spine that was lacking in the previous book. Gilman imparts a nice sense of seething political tension between the different races and power factions, ratcheting up the pressure on the team to get results by any means necessary. This story is also a great look at the he-said, she-said nature of a rape accusation, and of how invasive and callous the investigative process can be.
But while there are some nice reversals, and an interesting answer to the how and why of it all, there is something lacking about the who. Part of it was that the motives of the two Baddies who instigated it all were a little fuzzy; another part was that the foreshadowing was a little heavy handed such that we knew who all the co-conspirators were fairly early on. Overall the Bad Guys were just not all that scary or interesting, which made the final confrontation downright anticlimactic. Honestly the details of this story are far more interesting than the grand finale. I kept thinking it was a bit like an episode of CSI – enough of an investigation to keep your attention, but severely limited outside the narrow scope of evidence collection.
Similairly, on the character side of things this story is pretty flat. All the members of the team have distinct voices and are well established as individuals, but aside from how they snipe at each other, there’s just not a lot going on in their relationships. Gilman alludes to their stress and tension, but it’s more telling that showing. We never get into the meat of the emotional toll of their work – even when Bonnie feels unbalanced, we never get into why, or what it takes to fix it, or how it changes her; and so nothing ever comes of it. And while there are a few developments in Bonnie’s sex life – she hooks up with someone, and there is a ratcheting up of the sexual tension between Bonnie and Ben (her boss) – frankly it just wasn’t that interesting. I find that I don’t care if Bonnie and Ben eventually pair off or not, and their sexual tension (with a smattering of soul mates thrown on top) seemed forced. Once again I wish that there had been more time spent on building an attraction instead of just skipping over that part entirely so as to write about lust and longing. So while I like Bonnie’s sass and the team members individually, together they just don’t add up to anything outside of their case work.
I was also disappointed with how a fantastic subplot was never realized. Gillman introduced the idea of magical maniupation of emotions, with the Baddies sending some slippery magic at the team’s bosses to bring out the worst in them and cause them to self destruct. I loved everything about that idea and was eagerly anticipating what a wonderful mess it could make of the team, what nice character moments it could lead to – and then nothing ever came of it. There were literally just a few lines of dialogue between the bosses about how they’d noticed someone had tried it and it hadn’t worked, and the only useful thing that came out of it all was the introduction of a minor and overly convenient clue. It was such a waste.
So in the end, while the investigation was interesting enough to keep me going, when I finished this book I found I didn’t like the aftertaste. The characters, the relationships, and the emotional impact all came up short. And yet I still like the idea of a magical CSI enough that I will probably come back for a third try.
Pack of Lies hits shelves 1/25/2011
Byrt Grade: B+
As Levar Burton used to say – you don’t have to take my word for it…
In Pack of Lies, it seems that Laura Anne Gilman has (hit) her stride on this new series. There is less world building and more to the point CSI style investigation, all with magic…did I mention the sexual tension?
(& I’ll update this section as more reviews become available)
