I picked up Deadly Descendant last week at the library, kind of randomly as I sometimes do, and I wasn’t disappointed this time.

The story

Nikki is a private investigator who’s a descendant of the goddess Artemis, making her not only a great shot with any kind of thrown weapon, but also awesome at finding and tracking people. Useful skills to have as a PI, if you ask me.

When a new descendant appears in the DC area, sending a pack of enraged dogs after innocent bystanders, Nikki must investigate with the help of her new Liberi mates, all immortal descendants of other gods under the stewardship of the mysterious Anderson.

Who set this “Dogboy” free? Can Nikki stop him?

The review

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. It’s not romance; it fits rather in the category of “urban fantasy”, where paranormal elements meet contemporary mystery or thriller. This is a genre I’m particularly interested in these days.

The book is very fast-paced; I didn’t see the pages turn as I read through it. I got to the ending and thought “What? Already?” Even though it’s the second in a series, there’s enough information, cleverly placed at important spots in the novel, to help me understand the background. You can just pick up this one and get into the story and the characters without reading the first one, Dark Descendant.

As a main character, Nikki is great. She’s fiercely independent and solitary, but now has to count on other people to help her. She has to learn how to work in a team and trust others. There are more than a few snags along the way, but in the end she realizes that this is the place where she finally belongs. As an adopted child who went through the foster family circus, this can be terribly difficult to accept, but Black makes it quite convincing.

I enjoyed the simplicity of the internal world. Sometimes paranormal authors can get way overexcited by a multitude of creatures and powers (see My Wicked Vampire), but not here. It’s a version of Highlander, where only Descendants can kill immortal Liberi to become immortal themselves and develop powers. The powers are also logically related to the deity you descend from. This gives Black a lot of ideas to play with, and I really like what she did with two different descendants from death gods.

I’ve read better mysteries, honestly, but Nikki’s character carries the plot rather well despite the general weakness of the puzzle. The final confrontation let me down a little, but opened up a few avenues for development that I hope Black continues to explore in future installments.

All in all, it was a pretty fun and quick read. The writing did not get in the way of the plot and made me laugh often. It’s a great vacation or leisure read. Nothing to break your head over, action-packed and never boring.

Have you read any good urban fantasy lately? Share your suggestions in the comments!