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Midnight Blue-Light Special
It is part of the InCryptid #2 series and is a in Paperback edition on March 5, 2013 and has 338 pages.
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Other books in this series include [books_series]
Second in the InCryptid humorous urban fantasy series revolving around Verity Price.
My Take
Very enjoyable, although not as funny as the first one, Discount Armageddon, 1. I do enjoy those initial chapter quotes. Gives great insight into how Verity grew up.
Er, duh…what is Verity thinking? Then there’s the whole torture thing. She gives up her name and then talks about how dancers learn to deal with pain all the time. Ummm, then shouldn’t she have not told them her name?
This was just too sweet. The cryptids stepped up in this. All the negatives you would normally think would play a role were simply not there — well, except for the dragon princesses. Although there is something just a bit gruesome about Istas and how well she got on with the Aeslin mice! I absolutely adore those mice. They are such a crack-up!
It was a tidy-up of a story, setting Dominic’s loyalties, introducing new characters to the cast, and, unfortunately, ending New York City as a setting. Bummer. Still, it should be interesting to see where we go in the next installment, Half-Off Ragnarok, next March.
The Story
There’s some question as to Dominic’s adherence to the rules, and the Covenant of St. George is heading to New York to evaluate. A dread day for all cryptids in New York as their arrival can only mean a dreadful smiting throughout the city.
Unfortunately, Dominic knows where Kitty lives.
The Characters
Verity Price, a journeyman cryptozoologist, wanted a chance to pursue her ballroom dancing career — thank god for Kitty as she’s hired Verity to be the Freakshow’s dance instructor. Sarah Zellaby is a cuckoo. An honorary Price and Verity’s “cousin”. Artie is Sarah’s unacknowledged Internet boyfriend. I adore the Aeslin mice. They’ve made a religion of religion, granting titles and holidays with wild abandon — they call Dominic the “God of Questionable Motivations” and sometimes “the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever”. They have a very old High Priest and the various priest mice are wildly volunteering to spy.
Dominic De Luca is Covenant of St. George, a mortal enemy of the Prices. The three Covenant agents are Peter Brandt, Robert Bullard, and…Margaret Healy.
The Price family includes:
Kevin Price is her father. Antimony is a younger sister, who is very good with explosives and traps. Alex is the brother studying basilisk breeding in Columbus, Ohio, where Grandma Angela Baker, her maternal “honorary” grandmother, is from. She’s also a cuckoo. Everyone trusts a cuckoo, because they can never remember not to. Uncle Mike Gucciard, “the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already”, is a cryptozoologist from Chicago specializing in water-based cryptids. Well, he is married to one — Aunt Lea, an Oceanid.
Alexander Healy, Sr., Verity’s great-great-grandfather, took his family and escaped the Covenant to America. Thomas Price was one of the agents sent to entice the Healys back into the fold, but he got seduced into marrying into the family — Alice Healy, Verity’s grandmother, the one who is running in different time dimensions. Now the Prices are considered “shoot on sight”.
Freakshow employees include:
Kitty Smith, a bogeyman, is Dave‘s niece who has taken over the former Dave’s Fish and Strips and renamed it Freakshow (Dave lit out for places unknown in Discount Armageddon). Carol is a lesser gorgon who is always having to placate her hair; Candy is a dragon; Marcy is an Oread whose skin can’t be punctured; Ryan, a therianthrope (a natural shapeshifter), and Angel are the bartenders; Istas, Ryan’s girlfriend, is a waheela (a type of Inuit therianthrope) and waits tables; and, Joe is a Pliny’s gorgon.
William is the dragon who lives under New York City. Candy and Priscilla are some of his wives.
Dr. Morrow and Lauren, a Caladrius nurse, help patch Verity up. Gingerbread Pudding — make some gingerbread, it’s all I could think of while reading! — is Sunil and Rochak‘s business. They’re Madhura with a need to bake and an affinity for sugars. I’m asking them to move in…
Manananggal are Filipino monsters which prey on newborns and the mothers. The Covenant of St. George is a secret “organization of scholars, warriors, and assholes, dedicated to eradicating the world’s ‘monster’ population”. Exterminators with no sense of humanity.
The Cover and Title
The cover is grays and grayed-out colors. A misty sort of night in the big city with Verity ready for bear, bearing knives, swords, and guns in her worn jeans and cropped coral top. Sarah is behind her in a full skirt and shawl-collared sweater, long hair blowing in the breeze. Both girls are on a rooftop with Dominic standing watch farther back on a higher rooftop.
The title continues to play off the K-Mart/discount expectations with its Midnight Blue-Light Special as Sarah and Dominic do their best on this midnight deadline.
