Review for Night Shift, by Lilith Saintcrow

While Lilith Saintcrow stays true to the fantasy noir element in this series, the postmodern cyberpunk attitude has been turned down a full couple of notches. The protagonist Jill Kismet is a hunter, a private investigator dealing with incidents involving the fantastical creatures of the night. Again, the author has the first book mainly as introductory interactions of the characters, the world and the society. It feels as if she isn't going too deeply into anything yet, despite the focus on the murder case and the plot revolving around that.

Because I read her Dante Valentine series, I can't help but make a few compare and contrasts in my head. The similarities seem to be that both protagonists have deep psychic wounds from the deaths of others, and maybe as a result tend to fiercely keep friends at bay. For some reason or other, the male leads happen to worm their way into the femme fatales' affections anyway, even if through sheer stubbornness and devotion. Differences involve mostly the general tone of the novel, which seems to be more cynical and wistfully depressed rather than sardonic and nearly stark raving mad. So it's like Saul Dustcircle and Japhrimel are the same person, but Japhrimel is much more powerful. Perry is like Lucifer here, but then there is someone who is equally if not more powerful than him. Mikhail seems to be Jill Kismet's Jace Monroe. Again, the main love interest is introduced in the first book.

While Jill's sanity is a relief to read compared to Dante's mental circles, it also seems less compelling, somehow. The chapters in italics are obviously memories, yet we readers don't really know exactly when they pop up in the context of the rest of the story - maybe they are dreams, because sometimes they happen right after the protagonist falls asleep. Both Jill and Dante firmly grasp onto the notion of being human, as if for dear life. As opposed to Gabe and Eddie's respective psion and Skinlin orientations, the Weres seem to have a more complex honor system and ways of relating to each other. Lilith Saintcrow's protagonists also seem to have a fixation on the sense of smell.

Anyway, aside from my mental comparisons to Dante Valentine, Jill Kismet didn't make much of an impression yet, though I'll admit it must require a really strong will to kill one's pimps, train and be strong and then make a separate living out of that, starting over. Because of Dante, though, Jill now seems like a prototype. The tough-girl default.

By itself, though, Jill would be a quietly bitter tasting broth. The text kept telling me that the case she was dealing with was unusual, the patterns didn't fit. Since this was the readers' first time into this world as this was the first book of this series, the thought doesn't register as well as it should, because I don't have a norm to compare this to. I am reading and being told that these semi supernatural beings act a certain way, and that the norm for them doesn't fit with the details of the case, but I didn't even have time to get used to the idea of the norm for them yet. All in all, I wasn't particularly impressed with this particular book, but there are far less obvious references - maybe they're getting more subtle - so I'm holding out in the hopes that the second book in this series would give me more to think about.