Matthew Hunter

The novel opens with Anita being called upon to rescue Nathaniel, her house leopard, from a local S&M club. After months of enforced separation from Jean-Claude and Richard, months spent learning to control her powers, Anita is suddenly thrust back into the world of the monsters and forced to contend with her enemies once more. And with her allies, as well, for not everything has been peachy with her boys while she was gone.

A Storm of Swords continues the groundbreaking series that began with A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. It’s a massive tome that weighs in at almost 1,000 pages and continues Martin’s tradition of shaking up the characters and the world with momentous and surprising events. Rob, King in the North, continues his fight against the Lannisters – winning great victories on the battlefield, but conscious of his two sisters held as hostages.

Obsidian Butterfly takes Anita out of her usual territory when Edward (bounty hunter, assassin, and scourge of the preternatural), invites her along for backup in a New Mexico monster-hunt. It’s a rare chance to learn something new and interesting about Edward, who has been a consistent figure of mystery in the novels to date. And it does not disappoint in the least. Fans of the series will appreciate the fact that the sexuality in this novel has been toned down significantly.

Disaster. Betrayed by the rulers of Taglios at the very gates of the Glittering Plain, betrayed again as those few surviving members of the Old Company are just beginning to explore the mysteries they have long sought. Only Goblin and One-Eye of the Old Company have escaped the trap, joining with their Taglian brothers to continue the battle. Water Sleeps, the Book of Sleepy, details that struggle as it takes on the quality of a guerilla war.

A Clash of Kings is the second book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. The Seven Kingdoms are beset by four Kings, all seeking to rule. The Starks, wolf-lords of the North, are scattered: Arya and Sansa hostage, Robb at war, Bran and Rickon learning to govern Winterfell. The Lannister host led by Lord Tywin opposes Robb Stark, and Tyrion is set to govern King’s Landing – if he can survive Joffrey’s whims and Cersei’s cunning.

When Richard, the perpetual Boy Scout, gets himself thrown in jail on rape charges just a few days before the full moon, something doesn’t quite add up – and it’s Anita to the rescue. Another pack of werewolves and a hostile Master of the City in Richard’s college town don’t exactly simplify the situation, and when an endangered species of mountain troll joins the fun, this book has all the elements of a quality Anita mystery.

In Burnt Offerings some of the eggs laid in Circus of the Damned end up coming home to roost. Specifically, the vampire “Council” is visiting in order to investigate Jean-Claude’s intentions following the death of Mr. Oliver. Normally, when you kill a member of the vampire council, you assume his seat. But Jean-CLaude didn’t kill Oliver; that honor belongs to Anita. The only problem is, Jean-CLaude isn’t a strong enough vampire to hold the council seat – and if they find out Anita did the killing, she’ll be next on the menu.

The Hedge Knight builds on Martin’s short story in the Legends anthology about Dunk and Egg. It collects the six-issue comic series into a single graphic novel. If you missed the comics, this is a good way to catch up. The events substantially predate those in the Song of Ice and Fire series, however, and appears to be independent – that is, no information that is necessary to understand the series is presented in the graphic novel, and vice versa.

This, the Second Book of Murgen, continues to make use of Smoke’s unusual talents to provide a broad perspective to the Annalist’s recording of events following the end of the Dejagore siege. With the Black Company reunited with its Captain in Taglios, the time for the invasion of the Shadowlands has come, and preparations are moving rapidly. The intrigue is moving rapidly as well, for the Black Company has a long memory for betrayal, and the rulers of Taglios are beginning to think that their allies may just be worse than their enemies.

In The Killing Dance, Anita faces a new and unusual threat: a human assassin seeking to collect a cool half-million in return for her untimely demise. But assassins are only the beginning; the problems that Richard has created within his pack by trying to encourage a non-violent exchange of power are growing, and Jean-Claude’s “more photogenic, less monstrous” vampire regime is less than stable at the present. In that context, the obligatory murder mystery is almost anticlimatic.