Kelley Armstrong, Industrial Magic

Industrial Magic

Kelley Armstrong

Bantam, Nov 2004, $6.99, 560 pp.

ISBN: 0553587072

In Portland, Oregon, powerful witch Paige Winterbourne splits from her mother's ultraconservative American Coven of Witches following her matriarch's death. Feeling the group is too self-centered to understand society as a whole, she begins to form a new coven.

Meanwhile, someone is killing the teenage offspring of the Cortez Cabal. Leader Benicio Cortez is concerned and his own law enforcement team has not been able to stop the serial killer, always arriving just too late in spite of modern technology enhanced by paranormal powers. He asks his son and cabal heir Lucas and the lad's girlfriend Paige to stop a murderer before others innocents die.

The latest Underworld tale is a superb horror fantasy that hooks the audience the moment a beleaguered teen makes the cell phone call in an Atlanta park until the final confrontation with a supernatural serial slayer. The storyline moves quickly, but what makes the tale so good, just like its predecessors like DIME STORE MAGIC, is that the paranormal seems so normal, a way of life. Paige is a terrific heroine and Lucas is a perfect partner for her in many ways; together they make a dream team that the audience will appreciate as they face off against an evil doer.

Harriet Klausner