Book Review: Dead Man Rising by Lilith Saintcrow

It's a little exhausting to read a Dante Valentine novel. Not that they're bad. They're across the continent from bad. It's just that the author holds nothing back. The world and the characters are so intense and their problems so insurmountable, their situations so dangerous that you're on the edge the whole time you have that book open. These are not easy, formulaic books. I like that.

This is the second book in the series. Danny is forced to face the horrors of her childhood in a state run boarding school for psychically talented children with a headmaster who violently feeds off of them. Years later, omething's systematically hunting down a group of her former schoolmates and her cop friend Gabe asks for Danny's help. As Danny tracks down clues and kicks some ass, she tries to work through the baggage the events of the first book left her with: injuries, pestering letters from Lucifer(yes, THAT, Lucifer), the memory of her dead demon lover, her new half-demon status. And then there's Jace. He left her years ago. Danny found him again in the last book, and now he hangs around, helping her with bounties, seemingly content to just be with her. She feels guilty she can't give him more.

And that's just Dante. All of this angst exists within the framework of a futuristic, gritty, cyberpunkesque world that sucks you in, makes you think about it when you're not reading it.

No, these are not easy books. But they're more than worth your time.