Wild Hunt
Margaret Ronald
Harper, Jan 12 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780061662423

Know for her incredible olfactory sense that enables her to find missing persons and things, Evie “Hound” Scelan helped her former lover Frank McDermott escape from under the dictatorial control of the Fiana a cabal who controlled magic use in Boston (see Spiral Hunt). However Evie who is still upset with what the Fiana did to prevent the Sox from winning a World Series was so successful she left the city with no one in charge of magical practitioners although most users expected Evie would take over.

Chinese-American Yuen asks Evie for the favor of witnessing his death and to insure his father’s spirit residing in a jar that he gives her is gone when he is gone; she owes him so she pays him back by being there for him. He dies a few minutes later; Evie checks the jar, which she tells his daughter Elizabeth is empty. However, Elizabeth fails to heed her father’s directions, a major haunting mistake. Meanwhile Abigail Huston asks Evie to find out what her great-great-grandmother stole and who owns this item. Evie agrees to take her on as a client; not understanding what she has accepted as soon the trail leads to her own “messenger”-ancestor and the undercurrent Hounds.

Readers will enjoy the latest adventures of Evie who most of the Red Sox Nation expects her to take over from the cabal she toppled as successful coups always do. However, all she wants is to ride her bike, decide on how she feels about Nate Hunter who has his own paranormal problems, and take on clients needing her wonderful nose. Traders will enjoy her escapades in the urban fantasy noir landscape as Evie is a unique protagonist unlike most people who communicate through sight or hearing, her prime sense is smell.

Harriet Klausner