This being the ninth book in this series… there’s not a lot I can say that won’t be a spoiler… so this is your fair warning: Read further at your own peril. (If you’re like me, and read the end first anyway, I know you will ignore this anyway.)
🙂
Before I go too much further, though, I have to give kudos to whomever came up with the title of this installment. They all have Kitty’s name in them to carry through that sense of continuity any good set of series titles does. And they manage to cover the highlight of the action. Before I read this book, though, I never could have guessed the reference; having read the book, I have to laugh at the particular cultural reference it involves. (And I have to ask myself whether I’ll be able to do as well for my own, since I’m *still* brainstorming, and not feeling particularly inspired.)
Kitty and her pack of three get drawn into the deepening plot with the uber-evil Roman, which pulls them into the crypto-heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Kitty is forced once again to redraw the lines around her world and come to a deeper sense of herself and her place in the world.
I think that’s the thing that has kept me engaged in the series throughout all the books so far: Kitty grows and changes as an individual in each installment–and in ways that mirror what humans the world over do as they test their boundaries and place themselves in the context of deeper meaning and more commitment to the people they’re closest to.
What started out as almost a parody of some of the talk radio that currently exists in this country (and here, the author deserves kudos for being able to keep that patter going for this long without going stale!) with a touch of Nancy Drew’s ability to find a mystery in every circumstance she faced has evolved into an archetypal Fool’s path, in the sense that the Tarot or the Kabbalah paints.
There is regular hilarity interspersed with moments of terror, horror, and awe throughout all the books, and that’s the reason I can unabashedly recommend the books to anyone who enjoys a little humor, a little romance, a little grit, and a dose of modern reality mixed in to their werewolf and vampire stories.