The second of Laurie R. King’s Kate Martinelli books, To Play the Fool, is a tightly written, thoughtful work, and was a nice re-introduction for me to the series. I’d previously read the third and then the first ones; going back to read the second filled in the blanks nicely on things that I’d missed. It’d been long enough since I’d read the previous books though that I’d forgotten much of the nuances of the series, but I recalled enough to find this perhaps the most enjoyable of the ones I’d read so far.

Much of the pleasure of this book lies with the individual Kate must investigate: a homeless wanderer known only as Brother Erasmus, a charismatic preacher revered by the street people of San Francisco and who is the primary suspect in her current murder case. She quickly learns that the man communicates only in literary quotations and by presenting himself as a Fool, which makes questioning him frustratingly difficult. Yet as she investigates him further, she finds that he has a tragic and moving past, which all comes together to make the man a vivid figure indeed.

Against this, Kate’s domestic situation is a wistful counterpoint. Her partner Lee is recovering from traumatic injuries suffered in the first novel, and she and Kate’s home life has undergone major upheavals as a result. Kate’s efforts to find ways to help Lee regain her confidence while dealing with her disability are quietly touching.

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read. Four stars.

By modern standards, The War of the Worlds isn’t much of a plot: Martians come and take over the world, everybody goes OHNOEZ!, Martians conveniently are beaten not by any efforts of the protagonists, but rather by a deus ex machina (which I will not identify, on the off chance that someone reading this review might not actually know what that deus ex machina is). That said, this story is still totally worth reading just for it being one of the very first SF stories, and for the general style and atmosphere that Wells sets up with a Britain falling apart under siege.

I found it interesting that not only was the narrator never identified by name, in keeping with the style of the time, but neither were his wife, his cousin, or any other characters he encountered. Rather, people were identified by their careers and/or general functions in life. This fosters a nice sense of these people less as individuals and more as representatives of humanity falling to the Martians. It makes it a bit hard to keep track of who is who, though, especially when large chunks of the narrative shift over to the narrator’s brother (presumably with the conceit that his brother told him later what he’d done and seen).

Wells’ focus on Britain is pretty much to be expected, and I never got any real sense that the Martians were invading globally–especially when at the very end, you learn that other nations bestowed much aid upon poor beleagured Britain. It’s fun, too, to see what bits of actual science he gets right in his assumptions for how the Martians work as biological creatures and what is just made up right out of whole fantastical cloth. And while the narrative as a whole lacks in overall structure, look for the sequence towards the end, too, when the narrator and a curate are trapped underground on the rim of a Martian pit, which is decently suspenseful and creepy. Overall, three stars.

After getting four books in on the Connor Grey series, it’s both a refreshing and a disconcerting change of pace to jump over into the Laura Blackstones, the new series Del Franco is spinning off. This series is set in the same universe, but featuring a new protagonist, the druidess Laura Blackstone, a covert operative who operates under three, count ’em, three different identities at once for the Guild. And when an op she’s on under one of her covers goes horribly, horribly wrong, Laura has to investigate exactly what happened–and run the risk of losing not only that cover identity, but her actual life as well.

Familiar as I am with Del Franco’s style after four books of the Connor Greys, this one was a bit of a hard go at first. It’s clearly meant to be not only the first book of a new series, but also one geared to pull in readers not already familiar with the Connor Greys. If you are already familiar with them, then a good bit of the beginning is redundant exposition, and this for me was frustrating to slog through. Moreover–and this took me several chapters before I finally realized what was going on–Del Franco’s writing this series in third person rather than in first, perhaps to help give it its own voice distinct from the Connor books.

This is both effective and distancing. On the one hand, it does indeed make this feel more like a distinct series, but on the other hand, it makes Laura Blackstone feel less immediate to me as a character. I’m not sure how much of this is simply the third person writing, and how much of it is Del Franco’s comfort level with writing a female protagonist. But since there’s stuff to like here, including a suitably engaging story and chemistry full of promise between Laura and her love interest (who gets major points for being fey and neither vampire nor werewolf nor even Sidhe), I’ll be coming back for more when Book Two is available. Three stars.

With Unperfect Souls, the latest in the Connor Grey series, we’re well and thoroughly into the action at this point. If you’re new to the Connor Greys, this is not the book to start with.

Thanks to the events at the tail end of the last book (Unfallen Dead), the Dead of the fey no longer have access to Tir Na Nog–and now they’re roaming free in the mortal world, and on the streets of the Weird in Boston. Having the Dead on the loose is nine kinds of trouble in a district already fraught with tensions, as Connor discovers when he’s called to investigate the decapitation of one of the Dead, the only way they can be permanently destroyed. We get a side helping as well of Connor learning quite a bit more about the darkness in his head–and what he can do with it.

And what it can do to him.

This is definitely the darkest of the Connor Greys so far, and I’m not sure yet what I think about the new plot twist of Connor’s darkness seeming poised to turn him into the druid version of a leanansidhe. One does hope that he’ll eventually be pulled back from this, but it’ll be interesting indeed to see how many more books this plotline will carry through. Meanwhile, Connor’s relationship with Meryl is deepening, of which I approve; I’m coming more to appreciate a series that can focus on a single relationship and develop it across books rather than having the protagonist swap out partners every three or four books or so. Well done, Mark Del Franco! Four stars.