“Kitty And The Silver Bullet” was fun from the first page to the last. Carrie Vaughn’s writing is deceptively easy to read: I found myself sliding right into the story, like returning to a favourite reading chair, yet what Carrie Vaughn writes is not light-weight. It works because she loads her books with serious, difficult issues and drives Kitty’s development by her responses to them. Carrie Vaughn is never heavy-handedly didactic but her characters are always made to choose between right and wrong and to take the consequences of their actions.

Kitty, now the Alpha of a two werewolf pack, is forced by family circumstances to return home, even though the Alphas of her previous pack has banished her on pain of death.

This means that Kitty finally has to confront the abuse she received from the Alpha of her first pack and the scars that it left.  The confrontation becomes wrapped up in the Byzantine complexities of Vampire politics: a hierarchy enforced by violence and changed only by challenge but which turns out not to be entirely in the hands of the local Vampires.

Kitty befriends a young pack member who occupies the bottom-of-the-heap, abuse-toy for the Alpha role that Kitty held. This meeting, together with the reaction of some of her former pack-mates, makes Kitty realise that the experiences of the past year have changed her from a defenseless follower into a strong leader.

I enjoyed Kitty’s reluctance to become an Alpha and her struggles to try and avoid violent conflict. Perhaps it’s true that power should only be given to those who don’t desire it and the force is a last resort.

I was also fascinated to see Kitty trying to sort out whether she becomes more as werewolf by embracing the human or the wolf. Her reactions to abuse and murder are decidedly human. Her need to protect her pack and her pack’s expectations of her are mainly wolf.  Until this novel, Kitty has tended to see herself as a human who has contracted a disease that turns her into a wolf on the full moon. In this novel she accepts that that is not the whole truth. She is no longer who she was and she has now to decide who she will become.

Poor Cèsar. His old life was so Normal. Well, if you can call being a Witch employed by the Magical Violations Department of the Office of Preternatural Affairs ‘normal’. His day-to-day life consisted of getting warrants, performing arrests, putting the suspects on trial, and sendng guilty parties back to the Hell from whence they came – of course, with the travel forms filled out in triplicate. Hey, it was a job, right? And then, everything went to Hell. After finding a body in his bathtub in Witch Hunt, the first in the Preternatural Affairs series, Cèsar Hawke was suddenly on the run, desperate to find the real killer and clear his name. It wasn’t easy, and it definitely wasn’t fun . . . especially the whole “the Incubi now have a price on your head” part of the deal. Meh. After dealing with double dealing double agents (with really nasty tempers), vicious demons and various and sundry other nasties, a few Incubi shouldn’t be that big of a deal . . . should it?

Uh, well, maybe?

Now he is part of a special task force, made up of his old partner from Magical Violations, Agent Suzy Takeuchi, whose magical curses are only slightly less impressive than her verbal curses; Isobel Stonecrow, a necrocognitive who raises ghosts and speaks with the dead; and Fritz Friederling, the brains and money behind the task force. A very secretive and possibly illegal task force now based in Reno Nevada, away from the LA basin and the Incubi who are intent on taking Cèsar down for spoiling a very lucrative bit of fun for them. Ah well, can’t please everyone all the time.

Following up on an infernal energy event in Reno, Cèsar meets with a confidential informant, Connie, in an abandoned building, only to have Connie commit suicide right in front of him. Who could know that a demon would be so afraid of a simple daddy longlegs? I suppose when you are a Daimarachnid, a truly horrifying spider demon under your skin suit, and you have a lot to hide, it isn’t all that surprising that that simple daddy longlegs could have been a spy for the mother of all spider demons. Well, if there really is a mother of all spider demons out there somewhere!

Oy. Can things get any worse? Oh, yeah, baby. Much. Much. Worse. Walking nightmares are bad enough, but throw in a demon overlord and various and sundry goblins and goulies and monstrosities (Oh, My!) an abandoned mine filled with spiders the size of eight-legged ponies, zombies werewolves and ethereal ruins, and you have a recipe for many a sleepless night. Oh. And let’s not forget the new price on Cèsar’s head, courtesy of his bosses boss. Can just one thing go right for Cèsar? Just one?? He will take a tiny, small little thing. Really.

Cèsar’s life just gets more and more interesting, in a very Chinese May you live in interesting times sort of way. Many of the cast from Witch Hunt make repeat appearances in this new edition, along with several new characters whom I expect to see more of in the future. And there is at least one shock that I never even saw coming, something that may change Cèsar’s life even more. I look forward to Hotter Than Helltown, the next in the series. Hope you enjoy this series as much as I am enjoying it!

I received Silver Bullet from the author in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.