When book four starts we see the affects on the team of not having more local cops with Talent. I think this is to allow for more Talent teams to be created in the future and to show how integration rather than segregation is what is needed, showing the contrast with how the Egyptians, Vatican, and Native Peoples handle their societies.
They get called to the scene of a cop killing where someone used magic. Obviously, the cops are a little hostile. The interdepartmental politics in this one could have been more of a nightmare with a task force set up to find out who killed Peterson, actually a parole officer. He was supposed to be meeting with Alan Underwood, one of his parolees, when he was killed. We learn he was a dealer with a long history of violence and selling drugs. His coworkers Kyle Hall and Chandler Owen want justice and put pressure on the task force. Mrs. Underwood is the first real clue that all is not what it seems. We finally get what looks more like a law enforcement investigation in this book. The actual take down of the suspect is not on the spirit plane.
We get to see Kavon time walk–it had been mentioned before. The author is clever at putting up roadblocks that will make seeing the past or future difficult to see, or this would be over too quickly. The idea of time is very important in this book, but I won’t tell you how.
At this point, I have to wonder if the publisher insisted on all the racapping of previous books and already established characters. This is not a series that has standalone books, so I feel like this much is unnecessary. I also feel like anyone who can’t follow these books is used to easy reads and maybe doesn’t want to concentrate too hard on anything anyway.
The friction between Darren and Kevon is about walking that fine link of being partners and Kevon being his boss. Darren having access to more powerful magic yet having none without Bennu is a bit of a problem on occasion. Kavon having problems being overprotective of his team even though he knows they are qualified federal agents and good at their jobs. Both are facing the effects of the bond settling into place. The good news is that the emotional bond that I wanted to feel instead of just hear about, finally clicked for me in this book so I am willing to mostly forgive the clunky recaps. The love scenes and displays of affection seemed much more natural and intimate.
This actually has a lot of socially relevant ideas: about opportunities and education for the poor; ignoring tradition if it is no longer useful; and about taking the responsibility to help if you have the abilty/resources to do so. We see Darren start to see how the Djedi centers really could make a difference. This is connected to the POV we get of Assistant Director White in the epilogue to clue us in on future plot developments.
The series was originally published by Loose Id, which went out of business so book six was self-published by the author. I decided to reread the whole series before reading the new one. Basically, this is what our modern world would look like if magic users, or people with talent, had always existed alongside non-magic users, or mundanes. The laws that govern us would need to protect and police all citizens so the story centers around the Talent Unit of the FBI that works in Washington D.C.. While I have read other series with a similar plot, this world is totally unique. It also not only has both the two main leads as POC (people of color), but many of the supporting characters.
There is a tremendous amount of world building here with a complex plot. In this book, the FBI team is working on catching a serial killer using magic to drain magic from the victims. Much of the book is trying to figure out who and stop them while everything goes FUBAR magically speaking, causing Boucher to question everything he thought he knew about magic and about spirit guides. This books works hard to set the stage for future books covering both mundane and magical politics, terrible magical events in history, the love story between Boucher and Darren, and hints at an overarching plot that will develop over all the books. The author is clever at giving you information and then letting the scenes develop while layering in more and more information.
Darren is the only mundane on a team of all-Talent federal agents. Because people can ask to be interviewed by a non-magic user, his role is essential in investigations. He also works as the liason to the more conventional police departments and even other federal teams who do want to work with magic users. His partner is Les, an adept, with the ability to perceive truth when he talks to someone face to face. Kavon Boucher is a shaman and the head of the unit with fifteen years’ experience in the field and degrees in criminal psychology, deviant psychology, and ethics. Ben is his adept, with an ability to influence luck, and the rookie team member. Coretta, his second in command is a crystal user. Traci is the computer specialist and specializes in incantations. Rima is the charm specialist. Coretta, Les, and Rima all have backgrounds in local law enforcement.
Boucher walks in the spirit world but needs an adept to anchor him (hold the door open for the way back). Shamans have to have had a near death experience. Adepts are born with their magic and start to show their Talent while teenagers. Both usually go to a Djedi Center for training. Adepts are also the only ones that can’t really hide their magic as the marks come up on their skin, making them easy targets for hatred. Fundamentalist groups hate magic users. Shamans and adepts have spirit guides–spirits that look for talented humans with similar thinking patterns. The traits people have attract the spirit guide they get and influence the animal shape they will take. A guide can leave an evil shaman, otherwise it is also culpable. Those who don’t take a shamanistic path use crystals or incantations or charms. They have to gather up magic that has bled through to this reality from the spirit planes.
There are dangers for a mundane to be physically or emotionally close to a shaman so Kavon pulls away from Darren. Darren starts to believe Ben is trying to hurt him, but the team thinks it’s jealousy because he wants Boucher. So we start with a team that is on edge and has some friction. Kavon has tried to keep barriers in place against Darren, but they are starting to crumble. He is used to being powerful, knowledgeable, and in control of his domain so seeing him off kilter is fun. But Kavon knows who he is faults and all: short tempered, arrogant, loyal, brave, aggressive, stubborn, logical, and dangerous. When we first meet Darren, he has been under the strain of being in love with his boss for years. Once he gets the idea that he can actually have him, we see who he really is as a character: passionate, brash, intuitive, determined, stubborn, clever, and tenacious.
There is so much going on in the plot and laying the groundwork, that there is less of an established emotional connection with the characters than I am used to with this author. That’s illustrated in the lack of sexual chemistry for the first love scene. It’s described, but I just don’t feel it. Still, I feel their work chemistry, their redeveloping friendship and the way they fit together magically. Yet, when they are in danger and emotions should be running high, I still feel a bit disconnected. By the time the second love scene occurs, the intimacy level is much more developed, but I couldn’t help wanting more.
There are so many cool ideas in this book. The little bits about how the laws developed to protect society from magic users are interesting: laws limiting the evidence collected by shamans to probable cause hearings, for instance. I think that things are thought out about soul bonding and the spiritual abuse that could arise. While I don’t agree with the idea of dead and living magic in the way that the author defines them (to me magic is the redirection of energy which can’t be dead, even if it comes from the dead), it’s an interesting concept. The explanations for the way guides, shamans, and spirits interact on the spirit plane, and the effects of that in the world, clearly come from an imaginative mind. I like that different schools of thought have developed about magic so there is a place for Indigenous, Catholic, Egyptian, or other forms to coexist; that is only briefly touched on here. I don’t mean to overwhelm anyone with details, just to highlight the ones I think are most important to carry forward as I start book two.
ChaosMoondrawn 