Review: Tough one to rate (very minor spoilers)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2012
The entire story is not very long and takes place almost entirely at Mab's funeral. The funeral has apparently been delayed a few weeks until her identity could be confirmed. In the intervening weeks, Gin has been recuperating and is trying to get back to her former fit and bad-a$$ self. She attends the funeral with her still current squeeze Owen Grayson. Most of the city's underworld also attend the funeral to scope out the competition. Some of that competition stirs up trouble, trouble that Gin has to deal with.I like that we get to see some Gin vs dwarf action; the action scenes are some of the best parts of these books. We also learn what two other major players--Jonah MacAllister and Phillip Kincaid--think of what has happened so far and some of what their plans for the future are. Hint: Jonah's still pissed and Phillip wants to use Gin's skills for his own ends. The reason for the three stars, however, is that this is really just a bridge between the last book and the next one. It's also quite repetitive in that it relays information--particularly in the chapters from MacAllister's and Kincaid's POVs--that regular readers of the series already know, and the repeated information actually takes up a surprising amount of the text. For a new reader to the series, this book would have value, but for readers like me who have been following this series from the very beginning, there's not much to advance the overall story arc here.I am looking forward to the next book in the series, though, which is called "By a Thread" and comes out on February 28. This story ("Thread of Death") contains an excerpt of that book.