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Evil Ways (2008)

by Justin Gustainis(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1844165930 (ISBN13: 9781844165933)

languge

English

genre

Paranormal Fantasy

publisher

Solaris

series

Quincey Morris

review 1: This second case for Morris and Chastain ramps up the intensity of the first case. Someone, in fact a group of someones, are killing children and harvesting their organs. Morris is blackmailed by FBI Agent Dale Fenton and his new white witch partner Colleen O'Donnell to investigate the case. Meanwhile, someone is targeting and killing white witches and have made a few unsuccessful attempts to kill Libby Chastain. Quincey has Libby join him to help with his investigation and to protect her too. To provide additional protection, he enlists Hannah Widmark who is another very dangerous character. Both the FBI investigation and Quincy and Libby's investigation start pointing the same direction. A black magician named Lewis Pardee is planning something big. Like, lay waste to th... moree Earth big.Pardee is funded by zillionaire Walter Grobius who is hoping for healing from his terminal illness and extended life. Pardee has other goals. The action is tense in this one. I love the relationship between Quincey and Libby. They are friends and partners but have no romantic interest in each other. Both respect the other's competence and together they are a very formidable team.This was another great urban fantasy that was filled with action and adventure.
review 2: Amy Lane, who is one of my favorite authors, recently wrote a blog essay complaining about the number of times reviewers in the blogosphere admonish authors to "Show don't tell" when that isn't what they mean at all. They often mean that the book is written in omniscient perspective when they prefer first person. She then illustrated how it's possible to show instead of telling through omniscient narrative. It's absolutely true that a good writer can manage this very well, but many of those who use the omniscient perspective skimp on descriptions of the characters' experiences. For example, in this novel Gustainis tells us that a witch character "uttered a quick invocation against panic". He didn't tell us anything about the invocation. An invocation means that a power is invoked. What power does this character work with? This is a fairly important matter when it comes to witches. I get much less of an impression of who this character is and where she's coming from without this information. So she's a witch, but what sort of witch? Witches come in more flavors than the two mentioned in this book (white and black). That's a vast over-simplification. Based on this book, I think that Gustainis' concept of "white" magic is somewhat vague and abstract. Gustainis does describe "black" magic in great detail, but they are all cliches from bad novels and horror movies. There is an excerpt from the next book in the series that is more of the same. I think I'll give it a miss. less

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