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Wren Valere specializes in discreetly retrieving things. You might say she has a talent for it -- certainly that's how she'd phrase it, as the term 'magic user' is so crassly inaccurate. For ten years, things have been simple and lucrative. Her partner Sergei lines up the jobs, she does the paranormal leg work, and they both fly under the radar of the Mages' Council, who disapprove of freelance mages. This job seemed equally straightforward. Someone stole the cornerstone of an office building. The building's owner was willing to pay a great deal of money to get it back, no questions asked. Nobody warned Wren about the cornerstone's contents. But then, few people knew how it had been created, much less that moving it might set what was inside free . . . and they were the sort of people who don't like leaving witnesses. Now Wren is caught in the middle of all sorts of magical trouble between the client, the thief, the released spell, and the Council. Sergei cannot come to her aid because very powerful people from his past are taking an unnervingly personal interest in this case and his partner. Set in an alternate Manhattan where magic is another form of science and a significant portion of the population isn't human, STAYING DEAD is a complex cocktail of thieves with honor, buddies against the system, and plans of secret societies. Conspiracy fans will particularly enjoy that last, as there are quite a few groups and societies jockeying for position, including my favorite, the Cosa Nostradamus. (Another typical line: "She was a woman you'd be proud to bring home to Mother, if Mother was a black widow spider.") The novel has some of the usual flaws of the first in a new series. It's a little heavy on the exposition, doubly so because not only the characters but also the rules and terms of the alternate universe need to be introduced. Also, secondary plot threads are left unresolved to help set up the next book (due in the summer of 2005). This is not to say that STAYING DEAD is incomplete. It's an exciting, multi-level mystery, which starts out as a simple robbery and evolves into much, much more.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, September 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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