Sunday 2 May 2010

Review: Hard Magic - Laura Anne Gilman

My name’s Bonnie Torres. Recent college grad, magic-user and severely unemployed—until I got a call out of nowhere to interview for a job I hadn’t applied for. It smelled fishy, but the brutal truth was I needed the work,so off I went. Two days later, I’m part of the Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations (PUPI) team with four other twenty-somethings, thrown into an entirely new career in forensic magic. The first job we get is a doozy: proving that the deaths of two Talents were murder, not suicide. Worse, there are high-profile people who want us to close up shop and go away. Looks like this job is gonna get interesting. The only problem is, we’re making it up as we go along.…

Paranormal Scene Investigations Series:
Hard Magic
Pack of Lies (February 2011)

For more information visit Laura Anne Gilman's website

Review:
Bonnie has recently graduated from college and has started working for the newly formed organisation Private, Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations (known as PUPI for short).  PUPI is the first organisation of it's kind, started to investigate crimes within the magical community.  Magic has never been used for forensic investigations before so Bonnie and her colleagues are going to have to learn on the job and make things up as they go along.

Their first job is to investigate the deaths of an elderly couple who both the police and the Council (leaders within the magical community) believe committed suicide.  Their daughter is convinced there is no motive for suicide and hires PUPI hoping to find out what really happened to them.  The team are going to have to work hard to prove themselves, especially when the magical community are just waiting to see them fail & someone seems determined to make sure that is exactly what happens.

Hard Magic is an enjoyable read and completely different to anything I've read before which I found refreshing.  I thought that there would be more action than there was but this didn't stop me enjoying the story.  The world Laura Anne Gilman has created is so interesting and populated with such a great selection of characters that I was drawn in completely.  Every member of the team has different strenghts and weaknesses and an essential part to play in the investigations. 

This book is set in the same world as Laura's Retrievers series - where Bonnie made her first appearance as a minor character - but you don't need to have read this series to enjoy Hard Magic.  In fact this is the first book I have read by this author but I'll definitely be checking out the Retrievers books.  Overall this was a great start to a new series and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to the PUPI team in future books.

Source: Recieved for review from publisher via NetGalley

Other Reviews:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

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