Just Finished Reading: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Mercedes Thompson is a mechanic in the Tri-Cities. Her neighbour is an Alpha Werewolf, her ex-boss a Gremlin and her best client is a member of the Vampire Mafia. Mercy is hardly normal herself – she’s a skinwalker able to transform in seconds into a coyote. Hers’ is a strange world and it’s about to become stranger and much more dangerous. When a wandering, half starved werewolf shows up at her garage looking for work she takes pity on him. Unfortunately for all concerned he’s on the run from a mixed ‘pack’ of lone werewolves and humans bent on stopping their secret becoming public knowledge. They will stop at nothing to remain hidden from human sight including murder and kidnapping. Fur and silver bullets are about to fly and Mercy Thompson is in the middle of it all.

This was yet another example of the burgeoning sub-genre known as Urban Fantasy. Based in modern cities, rather than ancient castles and forests, these books concentrate on the supernatural creatures living amongst us – even our next door neighbours - including witches, werewolves, vampires and demons. Most of them are decent hard working folk who just happen to be different from the rest of us. Others have less regard for humanity. This is where the hero comes in – or more often the heroine. The central character is usually a strong, independent woman who just happens to be either a supernatural creature herself or a half-something. Often dragged kicking and screaming into the action she proves pivotal to its resolution and becomes a stronger more confident person when the dust settles which often entails kicking supernatural ass and taking names. I must admit (as you may have noticed) to being a big fan of this sub-genre. It’s fun and feisty. If you liked Buffy, who I think is largely responsible for this whole literature, than you should generally love this sort of thing. Obviously the quality of the writing varies but in this case there’s nothing to worry about. Pat Briggs writes well, her characters are fully formed and interesting. The action is believable (in context) and keeps you wanting to turn pages. I have the next two books in the series – recently picked up in Canada – and am looking forward to reading them, especially when the line “She doesn’t know what she is, and there’s no one left alive to teach her” jumped out from this book. I predict great things for Ms Thompson.