Divine Misdemeanors - Laurell K. Hamilton

Divine Misdemeanors
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books
2009
ISBN: 978-0345495969

The amazon.com blurb:

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin’s treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir—all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world—and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness.

While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles.

But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me.

I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical.

 This is the latest book set in the world of Merry Gentry, by Laurell K. Hamilton, following on Swallowing Darkness. Divine Misdemeanors was a quick read: I started it the day before yesterday and finished it last night, but that was at least in part because I couldn't put the book down.

This series is different from the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series - magic and the various creatures of Faerie have always been known about and live in the open. In the other series, there's still a sense that they're still coming out of hiding. I like both sets of books equally, though they're very different.

I said this about Torch of Freedom yesterday, that I felt like I had to reread the series to figure out what was going on. I felt the same way about Divine Misdemeanors when I was reading it. Not so much "who is this?" but "when did this happen?" or "what was it that involved this?", especially for some of the side-plots such as the military group.

Divine Misdemeanors does tie up some loose ends from the first books very nicely, loose ends I'd completely forgotten about. It's all set in the human world with very little of the politics of faerie - either court involved. Definitely interesting to see what Merry's life is like under more 'normal' circumstances. Her life certainly deserves those quotes around 'normal'.

I haven't seen anything in Laurell K. Hamilton's blog about the next Merry Gentry book this time, but I'd definitely have to guess that she's got more story to tell after this one, just by all of the things that have been hinted at but not resolved by the end of the book. I do hope so as I've found that I like the story quite a bit.