Elaine Cunningham, Shadows in the Starlight

Shadows in the Starlight

Elaine Cunningham

Tor, Feb 2006, $23.95, 288 pp.

ISBN 0765309718

After being fired from the force as someone had to take the fall for the failed deadly bust, former Providence police officer turned private investigator Gwen "GiGi" Gellman thinks her mentor died from murder not an alcohol induced accident as the evidence seems to 100 percent suggest. However, when her running partner police officer Kate Myers is gunned down after helping her, GiGi believes the homicide is related to her efforts to prove that someone forcibly put scotch into Frank Cross' before dumping him into Narragansett Bay to drown though the ME and Kate say otherwise. She now has a second major incentive to learn the truth and bring her friend's killer to justice, her style.

Her style means half elf as GiGi has recently learned she is a changeling (see SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS). She struggles with the concept, but also has a curiosity to learn more about her elven heritage though that has to remain on hold while she searches for clues to the two murders, seeks missing people, and tries to stop a pimp using a "legal" herbal aphrodisiac to prostitute Russian girls. However, all converge on the corrupt PPD at the same time elf Ian Forest demands she comes out of the closet to their side.

The Changeling Detective tale is a fantastic fantasy mystery starring a wonderful protagonist struggling with the loss of her job, the death of her mentor, the murder of someone assisting her, and learning she is a half-breed. The action-packed story line turns readers into believers that elves and half-elves reside in New England, albeit hiding their genetic make-up from the hated humans, yet the story does not skimp on the investigations. SHADOWS OF SUNLIGHT is a terrific tale that sub-genre readers will cherish while wondering what the future will hold.

Harriet Klausner