This fifth book in the Sazi series is variable. Parts are very good, and parts drag or don't feel comfortable. Although
it is the fifth in the series about werewolves and containing many of the characters of previous books, it isn't necessary to have read any Sazi stories before to understand most of the events in this one. There are some less common aspects to this series
- for example, the frequent discussion of scents that the werewolves detect, even in human form, which help them to know whether people are lying or afraid
- but there is also much that is familiar in this sort of tale, including the Alpha Male character, in this book Adam Mueller. Adam
is like lots of other policemen male characters, and he loses some points in this story for not telling the heroine, Cara Salinas, what's going on half the time.
Cara
became sheriff of Tedford County in Texas when the previous sheriff had a stroke.
She's found it a little difficult to adjust, and things aren't made any easier in
her now being the Alpha of her small pack. It can be very hard for her to reconcile her werewolf rules, to protect them from discovery with her policewoman's need to help and to serve. When she is visited by Adam Mueller from Minneapolis and discovers that some of Adam's pack may have to move down to her territory, it starts a lot of planning as to how this can be managed. There's also a side plot with giant birds apparently eating livestock and stealing young girls; this part of the plot moves in fits and starts and
is always a bit weird.
The good aspects of the story are some of the locations, the story being told from the point of view of the Latina policewoman as well as through Adam's eyes, and the interesting and varied range of characters. However, it never feels like it really glues together as a proper story, the romantic element seems
rather more of an afterthought at times, and the different plot threads being
linked seem too ridiculously unlikely a coincidence. I finished the book not entirely sure why the girls had been kidnapped, what was going to happen to them in the future, and who the snake man really was (presumably he will appear in a subsequent book). This story is probably one for fans of the Sazi series and not one for a newcomer as, despite its good points, it
isn't completely satisfying.