Review "City of Ghosts"

Title: City of Ghosts
Author: Stacia Kane
Published: July 27th 2010 by Del Rey
Genre: Dark Urban Fantasy


IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN ALIVE AND UNDEAD.

Chess Putnam has a lot on her plate. Mangled human corpses have started to show up on the streets of Dow...more IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN ALIVE AND UNDEAD.

Chess Putnam has a lot on her plate. Mangled human corpses have started to show up on the streets of Downside, and Chess’s bosses at the Church of Real Truth have ordered her to team up with the ultra-powerful Black Squad agency to crack the grisly case.

Chess is under a binding spell that threatens death if she talks about the investigation, but the city’s most notorious crime boss—and Chess’s drug dealer—gets wind of her new assignment and insists on being kept informed. If that isn’t bad enough, a sinister street vendor appears to have information Chess needs. Only he’s not telling what he knows, or what it all has to do with the vast underground City of Eternity.

Now Chess will have to navigate killer wraiths, First Elders, and a lot of seriously nasty magic—all while coping with some not-so-small issues of her own. And the only man Chess can trust to help her through it all has every reason to want her dead.


*This review might contain spoilers!*

Oh my God. I thought the second book was absolutly and utterly brilliant. That it was the best book yet this year. Well, what can I say, I´m running out of words.
"City of Ghosts" is once again perfection.
I don´t want to give away too much about the story, but it is fast, surprising with unexpected turns and uttely original.
What makes this book so amazing are the characters. Chess grows so much in this book, even though her life is still pretty much you know f**ked up. She realizes hiw how she needs and wants Terrible in her life, but due to the events of the last book, they are not really on good terms. It was heartbreaking to read how hard she tries to fix their relationship and what she´s willing to do to make amends. For once, her drug addiction takes a little bit of a backseat in the story. Which is completly understandable, because so much happens in the book.
Terrible´s character experiences an equal growth. It is unsettling to see just how insecure and vulnerable he is underneath his brutal and aggressiv demeanor. At some times during the book I still wanted to slap him, because he was that cold and just plain cruel to Chess. Still you can´t be really mad because what happened him must have been upsetting to say the least. But how everything works out in this book doesn´t leave anything to be desired! :)
Well, maybe not for fans of Lex. There´s a little less Lex in this book, but he stillgets his moment to shine and surprise you at the very end of the book.

Favorite scene:
Oh boy, where do I start? Definetly the scene with Chess and Terrible in the tunnels. And the one in Chuck´s. :) Both very... hot! :) I also loved how Terrible and Lex worked together to find Chess and her simple yet so meaningful and moving confession later in the book when she is aked who they were: "They´re my friends." (Even though I also kind of liked "My drug dealer´s enforcer and his rival who I used to fuck.") And the end. Oh yes the end. Sometimes the simplest words are the most beautiful and moving. All in all there are simply too many good scenes in the book. I could enlist the whole book just as well.

I don´t know what to write without sounding like a broken record. "City of Ghosts" is brilliant, heart-wretching, compelling with some of the best characters ever created. For me, "City of Ghosts" and the whole Downside series set the standarts for all Urban Fantasy books yet to come.
I´m addicted to these books. Seriously. I don´t know how I´m going to endure until fall 2011 when the next book is released.
I guess I´ll have to re-read them again. And again. And again. You get the picture.

My verdict: read it read it read it! 5 Points. Without a moment of hesitation!

By the way, look what I´ve found! Watching it is really fun and interesting!