Darker Angels (Book Two of the The Black Sun's Daughter) Review

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My inner curmudgeon nearly set _Darker Angels_ aside at about the halfway point. "I don't get this book!" said the curmudgeon. "The voodoo's all wrong. Legba isn't an evil serial killer! The good guys' plan doesn't quite add up, and is pretty unethical besides. And the interpersonal drama just ate the plot for lunch!"
"Sit down and shut up," said M.L.N. Hanover. "I'm telling a story here."
OK, so I've never met M.L.N. Hanover, and he didn't literally say that, but he might as well have. Because just as I was about to give up on _Darker Angels_, he threw in some twists that made me realize I was looking at it all wrong.
I must have been led astray by the extremely linear plot of _Unclean Spirits_. I was expecting this plot to be similar in structure, and so I wasn't asking the right questions. I shouldn't have been asking, "What did Hanover do wrong?" I should have been asking, "What might be going on within the plot to cause all these things to happen?" I think I also forgot that Jayné, despite being a narrator whose voice I really enjoy, is not a perfectly reliable narrator. She has biases and blind spots, and she doesn't understand everything she experiences. Jayné's preconceived notions got in the way of solving the mystery -- and so did mine.
_Darker Angels_ is much less linear than _Unclean Spirits_, and it's much better for it. The plot revolves around a voodoo spirit who manipulates its hosts into committing horrific murders. Jayné is hired by former FBI agent Karen Black, an acquaintance of her late uncle's, to help stop this spirit from killing a young girl. We visit New Orleans and see both the destruction left over from Katrina and the tenacity of its residents. The plot is full of great twists. Hanover yanked the rug out from under my feet at one point, and maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. It's when the pieces start to fall into place that you realize just how carefully Hanover set them up.
I really enjoyed _Darker Angels_s and I think it's safe to say I'm hooked on The Black Sun's Daughter. Jayné continues to be a delight; she's no master strategist, but she has a lot of compassion, and she has more courage than she thinks she does. And to heck with the inner curmudgeon. By the end, this had become a "set the alarm early so you can read before work" kind of book, and I finished it with a smile on my face and maybe a few tears in my eyes.

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In the battle between good and evil, there's no such thing as a fair fight. When Jayné Heller's uncle Eric died, she inherited a fortune beyond all her expectations -- and a dangerous mission in a world she never knew existed. Reining in demons and supernatural foes is a formidable task, but thankfully Jayné has vast resources and loyal allies to rely on. She'll need both to tackle a bodyswitching serial killer who's taken up residence in New Orleans, a city rich in voodoo lore and dark magic. Working alongside Karen Black, a highly confident and enigmatic ex-FBI agent, Jayné races to track down the demon's next intended host. But the closer she gets, the more convinced she becomes that nothing in this beautiful, wounded city is exactly as it seems. When shocking secrets come to light, and jealousy and betrayal turn trusted friends into adversaries, Jayné will soon come face-to-face with an enemy that knows her all too well, and won't rest until it has destroyed everything she loves most....

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