Review: The Magic & Mystery Continues
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 28, 2012
Segueing directly from the end of The Alchemical Detective, Riga Hayworth must now deal with two new mysteries:  one involving her newly affianced love Donovan who has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering, and the second involving death threats against a Shaman, who is actually an estranged friend of Riga's.A Death Faerie who sees this Shaman as his 'earthly servant' hires Riga - who is deathly afraid of the Fae herself - and claims he is cashing in her marker on a favor owed the spirit world from an incident in Book 2. (This is not spoiler - it all comes out in the very beginning).  Riga has no true choice in the matter and must accept her new client on his terms which are nothing short of blackmail.Riga is truly caught between a rock and a hard place, she must help Donovan for his sake as well as her own, and the contract with the Death Fae means she must help the Shaman for Donovan's sake as well.  Riga throughout this story is called to face her worldly and supernatural fears.But underneath the surface, the theme throughout is one of Love.  Not the sappy or sizzling type of love, but Love as a First Principle - though I may be reading more into the story than the story itself portrays.  I noticed in my reading though Love of Family, Love of Self, Love of Other, Parental Love, Love in Friendship, Love in Enemyship, Sibling Rivalry-Sibling Love, Requited and Unrequited Love, Love Sought,  and Love Found along with questions of trust, betrayal, and fear, and love inspite of fear.And you can ignore all that and just read it for a very interesting paranormal mystery, involving people in a romantic relationship but the plot is less directly a 'romance' plot than in the first two books of the series.