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My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like Julie Moffett’s No One Lives Twice–after all, a comedic action-adventure story starring a girl who’s a computer geek should have been tailor-made for me, right? Certainly the premise is promising enough: Lexi Carmichael is a computer expert working for the NSA, leading a predictably boring life, until the disappearance of her best friend.

Speaking as a woman employed in the computer industry, though, I fear I found Lexi’s ability with a keyboard distressingly lacking. Much is made of how this girl is supposed to be a hacker, yet she spends an awful lot of time getting the men in the cast to do actual computer work for her. And off the top of my head, the one bit I can remember where Lexi herself is at a keyboard on camera involves her specifically screwing something up. None of this did much to impress me with Lexi’s computer ability.

Likewise, Lexi shows distressingly little agency in finding out what’s going on herself, as opposed to relying upon the various men in the cast. There’s much mileage spent on the obligatory selection of sexy men and the question of which one of them Lexi’s most attracted to–which is all very well and good–but I would have respected this book more if it’d spent less time trying to convince me the boys were sexy and more time showing me that Lexi was, in fact, a hacker.

Mind you, the book’s not wretched by any means. Moffett’s got some genuinely lighthearted moments in here, and to be fair, the book does pick up a bit towards the end. I fear I’m not its target audience, though. Two stars.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a regular reader of tor.com, I’ve seen quite a few book reviews posted by author Jo Walton. Walton has a penchant for picking out books that have been out for some time–and which, consequently, are currently rather hard to find. Such is the case with John M. Ford’s The Last Hot Time.

I previously knew of Ford only as the author of the comedic Star Trek novel How Much For Just the Planet?, and so was quite intrigued by the prospect of reading something entirely different by him. Originally published in 2000, The Last Hot Time is an urban fantasy from just before “urban fantasy” really came into vogue as a subgenre in its own right. Familiar hallmarks are certainly here, though: an ostensibly real-world setting impacted by the rise of magic, fey creatures of various stripes, crimes that have to be solved, humans living in a city occupying a borderland between the real world and the magical, a gritty overall atmosphere, and more.

In this particular case, the setting in question is Chicago–a Chicago profoundly changed by magic and by the re-emergence of Elves into human society. Our protagonist is Danny, who saves the life of the victim of a drive-by shooting, and winds up in the favor of the mysterious Mr. Patrise, who holds power in the part of this changed Chicago that sits between the human world and the magical. Danny, now called “Doc Hollownight” by Mr. Patrise and his other employees, soon learns of the Elf sorceror Whisper Who Dares, who’s on the loose in the city–and that he’s going to have to help stop him.

There’s a lot that’s familiar here if you’re a longstanding reader of the genre, to be sure. What pulled me in, though, was the juxtaposition of elves and gangster-style characters, which gives this almost more of a feel of a story set in the 30’s rather than a more contemporary time frame. What kept me was Ford’s excellent prose, and his way of naming elf characters. The aforementioned Whisper Who Dares is an example, and that’s even just the short form of that character’s name; the full form is Whisper Who Dares the Word of Words in Darkness. I also very much liked the character Cloudhunter Who Keeps His Sisters’ Counsel, a.k.a. Cloudhunter, a.k.a. Cloud. Ford’s version of elves in general read for me exactly how I like elves to read in any fantasy, urban or otherwise: i.e., elegant, otherworldly, and with a noble lyricism about them that can be either bright or profoundly dark.

It’s a great loss to the genre in general that Ford’s passed away, but fortunately, he’s left behind some excellent books. This one is well worth hunting down if you can find it; I checked it out from our local library, and am hoping to track down a copy of my own. Five stars.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To my satisfaction, Death Echo is one of the stronger Elizabeth Lowell thrillers I’ve read in a while. It’s #4 of her St. Kilda Consulting series, and of the set of those, this one so far has been my favorite. I’m pleased in particular that our heroine, Emma Cross, is the St. Kilda agent, while hero Mackenzie Durand is the freelance boat captain she has to work with; this does much to put these two on a more equal footing than I’ve seen in many Lowell novels.

Death Echo‘s conflict is driven by Emma’s mission to track down a yacht called the Blackbird, and discover what its intended cargo will be–for there’s a threat to a major American city at stake. Mac’s part in the plot is to provide her boat transport, and, familiar as I am with Lowell’s older novels, this called back hard to Amber Beach. But I enjoyed this book much more than that earlier novel, in no small part because of that equal footing I mentioned. There’s a great tense sequence through the climax where Emma has to take over the boat she and Mac are on, thanks to what happens to poor Mac. And if you’re at all familiar with this kind of romantic suspense novel, you can probably easily fill in that blank.

As always with Lowell, there’s angst-filled pasts galore for hero and heroine alike, and still nothing here that’s terribly new for her. Still, though, this felt like a maturer work than many of hers, and it was a good solid read. Three stars.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you would like to get into the Bethancourt-Gibbons mysteries by Cassandra Chan–an activity I’d highly recommend–then Book 4, A Spider on the Stairs, is probably not the place to do it. On the one hand, Chan does a good job of making each story self-contained, and it’s not a huge detriment if you come in at this point of the series. But on the other hand, events in the earlier books do influence the ones in this one, and I certainly found my ability to enjoy this story enhanced by knowing what had come before.

In this particular installment of the series, “what had come before” is Jack Gibbons’ getting shot in Book 3. A Spider on the Stairs is the first we see of him after he’s returned to active duty, trying to nail down whether a particular recent murder is the work of a serial killer at large. Meanwhile, Bethancourt has to deal with a trial of his own: his family over the Christmas holidays. Fortunately for these lucky boys, a new case quickly distracts them both: whether a bookshop employee found strangled on Christmas morning is the work of that same killer.

Overall I liked this one quite a bit. The bookshop murder is (for reasons that ought to be obvious) strongly Relevant to My Interests, but just as fun is getting to see Bethancourt having to deal with his family. On a somewhat more serious note, it’s also good strong character development to see both Bethancourt and Gibbons needing to regain their footing now that the latter is back on active duty. As with previous books in the series, there are several nicely portrayed side characters to populate the list of suspects–and of course, this being a mystery novel, the employees of the bookshop have far more drama in their backstories than meets the immediate eye. So yeah, good fun. Four stars.