Various Thoughts

This  series, by Caitlin Kittredge, is another entry into the ‘overly aggressive and violently independent female lead’ category of novels. It follows the exploits of Luna Wilder, a detective on the Nocturne City police force who just so happens to be a werewolf. Kittedge’s universe contains werewolves, caster witches, blood witches, and daemons, all of which are minorities that are looked on with fear and loathing by the pure blooded humans.

The first book in the series, Night Life, introduces the reader to Nocturne City and showcases Luna’s somewhat grating personality. She’s beyond confrontational; firing off smart-ass and half-cocked retorts at just about any inquiry, instruction, piece of advice, or general comment sent her way. The plotline follows her around as she meets a potential love interest named Dmitri (a watered down and lowbrow version of Jean Claude from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series), clashes with the captain her department, and tracks down a murderer bent on summoning a greater daemon.

The second book in the series, Pure Blood, picks up roughly three months after the end of the first book. Dmitri has disappeared off somewhere, her cousin moved out of the house to go live with her grandmother (whom she hates), and just about everyone now knows she’s a werewolf thanks to all the media attention the daemon summoning case got. To top it all off, Luna returns to the work and finds things worse-off than they were before. While the last captain simply didn’t like her because she was female, the new captain hates her because she’s a werewolf and has even saddled her with a partner. This novel follows her and her new partner as she attempts to uncover the truth behind a deadly feud between the caster and blood witches.

I don’t know about this series. Luna isn’t really a likable character… at all. She doesn’t appear to have anything resembling a valid reason to be so invariably, excessively (almost rabidly) independent. Why did she even join the police force if she’s so adverse to authority? How did she make it out of uniform to detective? Why is she so infatuated with Dmitri, who’s nothing more than a two-dimensional ‘biker-gang member with a heart of gold’? It’s just question after question with this series as the oddities and illogical situations continue to pile up.

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