Under the Gun by Hannah Jayne
Series: Underworld Detection Agency #4
Published by Kensington
Published on: February 5th, 2013
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Werewolves
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
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When you’re near the top of the Underworld Detection Agency, the claws really come out…
Quick thinking and loyalty have taken human Sophie Lawson a long way in the UDA—along with a healthy dose of magic immunity. But when her old boss Pete Sampson asks for help after a mysterious two-year disappearance, she’s determined to find out what high-placed demon has put two ruthless werewolf killers on his tail.
Under the Gun supports my running hypothesis concerning this series, i.e. the lower the stakes, the greater the pleasure. No fates of any world are thankfully entrusted to Sophie not because she can’t handle them (we know very well she can’t) but sensibly enough because it is far more enjoyable to watch her bungle the most simple homicides and romances, just your typical Californian fare.
A shining moment, one that shines so much I just have to pick it out, would be a cleverly written “activity” that really brings Alex and Sophie together. I appreciate when risks such as these are taken, when it feels as if a strong tangent is being born and the ground is coming out from under me reading, i.e. “this can’t be happening”. If this paragraph comes across as incredibly vague, it is only because I cannot give away either what I thought was happening or what was really happening for fear of truly spoiling a free-floating moment.
An appreciable B-plot in which San Francisco heats up -so out of character- and forces Sophie’s vampire roommates, Vlad and Nina, indoors, one to play videogames and the other to shop madly QVC style, lights up the A-plot just the way I like it. And let me be clear. This A-plot is a big grey cloud, gory scenes that, thank goodness, are not described in detail, but, nonetheless are communicated handily in Sophie’s near-bodily responses.
If anything the werewolf hunters, Feng and Xian, deserved far more characterization/quirks. Their Chinese-ness felt very normal/borderline-stereotypical in a series that so frequently throws curveballs and monkey wrenches into the proverbial grinder. Of course, all the baddies, across all the books so far, suffer from too-late introductions and god-awful reasoning.
What should I expect, however, since Sophie’s biggest enemy will always and forever be herself, whether it be in delivering marshmellow pinwheel after pineapple bun into her stomach or sketching up another gun-toting, bad-ass persona for her frazzled ego? To errors!
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| Recommended: | For those troll cameos |
| Like this, like that: | The Abby Sinclair series by Allison Pang and the Black Wings series by Christina Henry |
