Vendetta

Vendetta is Gail Z. Martin's follow-up to Deadly Curiosities. Written December of 2015 and published by Solaris, it is the second book in the "Deadly Curiosities" urban fantasy series set in modern day Charleston, South Carolina. This series just keeps getting better. Many of the complaints I had when reading the first novel, which I loved, have been rectified in this second book in this new promising series.

The ghosts in Charleston are getting very riled up, manifesting in more and more violent manners, and it is up to Cassidy Kincaide and gang to figure out why and solve the problem before someone gets hurt. In addition, people are disappearing across the city while walking down stairs. That's right they just disappear mid-stride.

As in the first book, Vendetta is filled with action. Starting from page one, there are ghostly battles filling every one of its 459 pages. Cassidy is getting more proficient in controlling her powers and this makes for tighter plotting throughout this novel. I did not have to wonder if the reader was going to be treated to yet another Cassidy collapse each time she walks into a new room.

Charleston the city is definitely more of a character in this second novel, specifically the "Angel Oak" on Johns Island. I looked this up and it is a real tree.

The author is doing a fine job of making me curious to learn more about Charleston. This had been one of my gripes about the last book, I thought Ms. Martin should have written more about the city itself, and I think she vastly improved upon this with this second book.

I was also relieved to see that the characters were making fewer of the nonsensical moves in this book, or they were still making them but admitted that they were bad ideas. I'm ok with making dumb moves when the characters feel they have no choice, and acknowledge that the move is not the smart one. In this case, because time was becoming an issue and the evil at work in Charlotte was so powerful Cassidy and friends needed to pull out all the big guns including Sorren, who had a much larger part in this book than the last.

So my new complaint about this book, and it is a small one, is that the true nature of Cassidy and Sorren's shop, Trifles and Folly is supposed to be a secret, but by the time this book ends it is apparent that it is the worst kept secret in the history of secret keeping! Everyone who has ever been introduced in the either of the books apparently already knew all about it.

I'm giving Vendetta 4 enthusiastic stars. There is so much potential in this series. I hope the author introduces a multi-book plot in the next one, to keep the series from becoming to formulistic. Maybe more about "The Family" and "The Alliance" the two secret organizations only briefly mentioned in the books so far.