Good Guys
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A snarky, irreverent tale of secret magic in the modern world, the first solo standalone novel in two decades from Steven Brust, the New York Times bestselling author of the Vlad Taltos series
Donovan was shot by a cop. For jaywalking, supposedly. Actually, for arguing with a cop while black. Four of the nine shots were lethal—or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved.
When Marci was fifteen, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn’t like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too.
“Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she’s as powerful as Donovan and Marci now.
They can teleport themselves thousands of miles, conjure shields that will stop bullets, and read information from the remnants of spells cast by others days before.
They all work for the secretive Foundation…for minimum wage.
Which is okay, because the Foundation are the good guys. Aren’t they?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this underwhelming paranormal procedural, a trio of investigators working for the Foundation, a secret organization that regulates and monitors magic, set out to find a magic-using hit man. Donovan, Marci, and Susan must figure out the connection among the victims while dodging attempts on their own lives and contending with the Foundation's bureaucracy and a possible traitor somewhere in the organization. Brust (the Vlad Taltos series) has a clever and complicated take on urban fantasy. The use of multiple viewpoints, including a first-person thread from the killer's perspective, livens things up somewhat, and the plot takes some unexpected turns, leading to a satisfying if vague conclusion. But the story is hampered by a focus on the mundane details of the investigatory process, including lengthy Skype chats and requests for reimbursement. The detached, almost dispassionate narrative voice and the clich d nature of the Foundation and the serial killer give the impression that Brust might be intentionally drawing out the details to deconstruct genre tropes, but the book doesn't succeed either as commentary or as a mystery.
