Friday, August 1, 2008

Hunter’s Prayer-Lilith Saintcrow

Hunter’s Prayer
Lilith Saintcrow
Orbit, Sep 2008, $7.99
ISBN: 9780316001762

Jill Kismet is a hunter; a human who kills the creatures of the nightside; evil beings who wish to destroy mankind. The local police are not equipped to deal with such beasts so they hire her when it looks like the supernatural committed a heinous crime.

She is called in to examine a body of a prostitute in which all the internal organs are gone and it looks like someone took out chunks of the victim to eat. Jill learns that others were found in the same condition. In between looking at dead bodies and trying to figure who or what killed them, Father Guillermo calls her to do an exorcism on seminary student Oscar. She is successful in pulling the demon of his body, but she later learns he is a Sorrrow; a human who worships the Chaldean Elder Gods. If Sorrows are in Kismet’s city, she is prepared to deal with them because she uses a hellbreed’s mark, which gives her powers that originate in Hell. Jill discovers an old enemy is in town; the Sorrow who killed her mentor and she learns that a rebel Sorrow is performing a ritual that will allow the Nameless, Destroyer of Babies and Eaters of Worlds God to cross into our real unless she can locate and stop the evocation.

As usual, Lilith Saintcrow writes an entertaining, action-packed urban fantasy loaded with strange dark and evil monsters. Her Hunter world is grim yet hopeful as creatures of myths, legend and the night roam the earth. The heroine uses evil powers to fight for the better good and protect the innocent in a sort of fight fire with fire manner. Jill’s romantic feelings for a were-cougar embellish an enjoyable paranormal thriller.

Harriet Klausner

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