Nicole Peeler - Tracking the Tempest

Tracking the Tempest

Nicole Peeler

Orbit, Jul 1 2010, $7.99

ISBN: 9780316056571

In Rockabill, Maine hybrid Jane True struggles with learning she is half Selkie. She also tries to understand her new skill as a magic practitioner. However, Jane is also running out of time as purebreds detest Halflings; preferring the Selkie species to be perfectly pure. On the other hand Nell the gnome, Anyan the dog and Trill the kelpie train her on her new skills; though Jane thinks torture is a mire accurate description of their mentoring her.

Her beloved Ryu the vampire is on her side though he is in Boston on a homicide investigation. When she decides to visit her vampiric investigator, Jane never expected to become part of an inquiry he is making into Conleth the Halfling Ifrit, who escaped from a Dorchester lab that blew up right after he got out. Ryu thinks Conleth blew up the lab and has become a serial killer especially of Halflings, but Jane finds several other suspects who will not mind the murder of a nosy Halfling.

The latest Tempest urban fantasy (see Tempest Rising) is an excellent urban fantasy as the heat is on the heroine (and her lover) in Boston. The story line is fast-paced from the moment the heroine joins her "Impaler" lover in Boston and never slows down as the pair search for a paranormal serial killer. Readers will relish Tracking the Tempest as Jane seems truly to be in the eye of the perfect killer storm.

Harriet Klausner