Peter M. Ball

It's a gritty noir short novella about a crime ring making unicorn snuff films, complete with the hard-drinking ex-cop (lady) narrator (whose ex-lover - also a lady - is somehow involved), the body of a young girl in a dumpster, and the mano-e-mano gotta-take-em-down-myself finale. That's how it was sold to me, and that's what it delivered. I find myself somewhat dissatisfied with that delivery, but a lot of that (I suspect) is me, not the book.

For starters, I don't read short spec fiction. I don't really read short fiction, full-stop, because if a story's worth engaging with, I want to engage with it fully and in detail and with all its context and complications. I kept seeing teasing glimpses of all that stuff around the edges of this story, and it frustrated me immensely to turn away from it. Especially given that all of this seemed to be driven by "what happened last time there was a unicorn", the lack of detailed exploration of what happened last time really annoyed me. I just feel like there's so much more that this could be, and so much more to explore within this story (and the larger world).

So while there's a lot that I like about this ruthless urban faery fantasy, I just can't take it above three stars.… (mais)

Miriam Aster is an ex-cop turned PI who specialises in cases with Fey influence. That is fairies, of the dark and nasty kind. This time she consults on a missing persons case, and stumbles into another fairy-related crime.

I did like this Miriam Aster Novella, but not quite as much as the first, I think maybe the minor characters were not quite as central to the case this time, or not as fleshed out anyway.

The first novella had a strong sense of connection between Miriam and her Fey ex and the story was stronger for it.

This time around the love interest doesn't seem to be as strongly connected to the feisty detective, and if she weren't the client you might wonder why she was included at all.

There was still a strong fast pace and the story kept my attention. An interesting take on the faerie world.… (mais)