Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Margaret K McElderry
Rating: worthy
I've already reviewed the first in this series, White Cat and the sequel, Red Glove.
This one takes off exactly where the last one ended. Cassel and his brother Barron are play-acting at being FBI agents, tailing Lila, with whom Cassel is still obsessed, just for the practice for when they're accepted as real FBI agents. Sam's girlfriend Daneca is now dating Cassel's brother, but Sam doesn't know it. Cassel learns that his mother (Shandra Singer) stole the resurrection diamond from mobster Zacharov (Lila's father), having an affair with him in the process, for that very purpose. Now Zacharov has Shandra held captive - not much of am imprisonment, but the real punishment is the threat, not the specific circumstances of her captivity - against Cassel recovering the diamond.
Moreover, Cassel is being pimped by the FBI to deal with Patton, a crazed state governor who's leading the charge to suppress, repress, imprison, and pretty much wipe-out the curse workers. The FBI wants Cassel to transform Patton into some other species, so he's taken out of the equation, but the more Cassel considers what they're asking him to do, the more he realizes that they're setting him up to take the fall for taking out Patton. Moreover, he also realizes that if he does take out Patton, it will not prevent the legislation that the latter is sponsoring - it will more than likely render him into a martyr, and insure that the legislation is carried.
Cassel manages to wangle his way through all of this without any disastrously false steps, and finally, at the very end, after all this time, he gets...well you'll have to read it to discover that! I liked this volume, too, so I guess I'm signed on to continue reading this series as long as it keeps being readable. It wasn't spectacular, nothing to rave about, but it was acceptable; it was an easy read, and I blew through it rapidly. The only screw-up I noticed was 'Yalikova' on p231 when it should have been 'Yulikova'. The rest was well-written, engaging and kept me turning the pages, so it's a worthy read as far as I'm concerned.
