Customer Reviews

Redemption Alley (Jill Kismet, Hunter, Book 3)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not a lot of plot or character development, but still a good read and interesting story.

The plot in the third Jill Kismet saga twists like a rattlesnake and bites like one: fast, hard and deadly. Jill is up to her ears in Traders, Hellbreed, scurf, crooked corps, crooked politicians, lies, misdirection, and a particularly gruesome form of biological warfare, all tied together to bring something very, very nasty into the nightside. Cops have always been the Hunters' allies, they back each other up, but this time Jill doesn't know who to trust, and who is out gunning for her.

There is as much blood and gore as in the first two books, and Jill is the target for more than usual. At times I couldn't understand how she kept going. This is a good story, a great, convoluted plot and the inwardly conflicted Kismet character continues to evolve. Maybe I'm wrong, but I felt that Jill was almost sorry for a couple of Traders, even though she killed one of them in the end.

The only thing to give me pause in Redemption Alley was the actual prose. Ms. Saintcrow's writing style has always been all over the place, in some parts conventional punctuation; in others, punctuation seems to be used only to indicate a pause in thought, speech or activity; in others, run on sentences lack any punctuation. I'm not a fanatic where punctuation and sentence structure is concerned, so that does not normally bother me. But when I have to go back and reread sentences and paragraphs, well, that does bother me.

"Jacinta Kutchner's corpse hung from a white and blue striped nylon rope looped over an exposed beam creaking slightly as the house settled for the night."

What was creaking? Kutchner's corpse? The beam? The rope?

But on the whole, I enjoyed Redemption Alley and look forward to reading number four: Flesh Circus.

This book is definitely the best book in the Jill Kismet series so far and has Lilith and Jill hitting their prime with an action packed, plot twists laden, science fiction fantasy. If you are in to the Nightside and love action novels this is your book. We learn more about the entanglement of Perry (Pericles) and Jill, scarf infestations and who is behind the organ trade touched on in earlier books.

This is definitely a book I couldn't put down with little downtime in story. I highly recommend this novel.

Mark

Having just rescued a teen from a Trader, Hunter Jill Kismet knows her vocation allows no vacation. Her Santa Luz police department contact Detective Montaine asks Jill to look into the suicide of a cop; Officer Marvin Kutchner ate his Glock two months ago. The deceased has not returned from the grave so is outside of Kismet's cases. However, Montaine says Kutchner was his partner at one time and he would never take his own life. Kismet notices the popular police candy Tums unopened and the police hydrator whiskey almost filled so decides to help her contact obtain closure by investigating the death so that the bottles remain practically filled.

The simple case turns convoluted and deadly as allies prove false and enemies prove loyal. Cops want her dead and Hellbreed have damning information they offer to her. As she digs deeper and deeper, Jill finds links to disappearances and begins to uncover a hellish conspiracy that places the city in danger unless she can finish peeling back the onion in time with the help of another Hunter and some Were.

The third invigorating Jill Kismet investigative urban fantasy is as vivid and violent as the previous thrillers (see NIGHT SHIFT and HUNTER'S PRAYER) in this action-packed take no prisoners without blood flowing saga. The story line is faster than the speed of light as the heroine jumps feet first into the hellish fire as nothing is what it seems. Filled with great twists, Lilith Saintcrow provides a stunning Kismet entry as the Hunter affirms Schwartz's tenet that Murphy is a god damn optimist.

Harriet Klausner

"Four shots, whip cracking across a Trader's face and snapping back, I *kicked*; my steel-toed boot caught the snarling hellbreed just under the chin with a sound like thin glass wrapped in bread dough when you drop a hammer on it. Clearing a hellbreed hole is messy, even with heavy-duty sorcery and silverjacket lead. Thin black ichor coated the floor, not yet ankle-deep but we were going to get there." (p. 148)

In this third Jill Kismet outing, author Saintcrow and her creation Kismet remain anything but subtle. Somebody or something gets killed, shot, or at least badly mussed up every few pages. Kismet takes a licking (and some bullets and stab wounds) and keeps on kicking butt. Kismet continues to be a sardonic, vigorous, and graphically vivid narrator, as in the above snippet, and her story always keeps moving even if it's not always clear where it's going.

As you already know if you've read the two earlier books in this series, Jill Kismet is a "hunter", a woman who protects her mythical Southwestern city of Santa Luz from the depredations of demons ("hellbreed") and their human associates ("Traders"). She works both freelance -- as she does at the start of REDEMPTION ALLEY, rescuing an abducted girl from a Trader -- and in conjunction with the police. She has supernatural powers -- mainly super strength and quick healing -- as a result of a dark bargain she made with a hellbreed named Perry. Both a wisecracking detective and a purveyor of slayage, Jill is a sort of cross between Sam Spade and Buffy Summers.

In REDEMPTION ALLEY, Jill finds herself investigating two distinct cases -- the disappearances of regular folks and the deaths of some cops -- and finding that there may be a connection between the two. The link seems to have something to do with "the scurf", a virus that turns people who contract it into mindless, amorphous bloodsuckers. It's not clear where the scurf came from, however, or what it has to do with the cops. On the other hand, it is clear that somebody doesn't like Jill's investigation and isn't averse to saying it with bullets. I don't think it reveals too much to hint that the answer may have something to do with black market organ harvesting, twisted experiments in supernatural chemistry, the attempted evocation of a Big Nasty (as in HUNTER'S PRAYER), and corruption in the halls of the law.

As a read, REDEMPTION ALLEY has the same virtues and problems as the earlier books. On the plus side, it is tense, action-packed, and a real page-turner. In the minus column, there is a lot of repetition. Saintcrow recycles a number of plot elements from the earlier books, and, more annoyingly, Jill keeps telling us the same things over and over. She frequently reminds us that hellbreed smell awful when butchered (hence the "stinky" in the title of this review); that she saves regular folks from the damned, but she is damned herself; that she despises and frequently kills the Traders who make deals with hellbreeds, but her success as a hunter is predicated on her deal with Perry; and that she hates Perry and the hellish power she draws from him, but the power itself is seductive and the more she draws on it, the more dependent she becomes on Perry.

Bottom line: If you enjoyed the earlier books, you will probably like this one too. If you thought the plots were too thin or convoluted in the earlier books, you will not find solace here. If you haven't read the earlier books, this is probably enough of a standalone story for you to give it a shot.

I've been reading the Jill Kismet books in order, but got half way through Redemption Alley and couldn't finish. It just didn't seem to be going anywhere. I've read all the Dante Valentine books and that's why I started on this series. Basically Jill goes from collecting clues, kicking the behinds or killing various creepy crawlers and bad guys, getting her own backside frequently kicked to the point of near death but recovering because she heals courtesy of the demon scar, and then back around again. Her bf/mate Saul is out of the picture, being out of town tending to a sick mother, so we get no interaction between him and Jill -- at least halfway through the book anyway. Perhaps he shows up later, but I just got bored. Too bad, their relationship was one of the things I liked reading about because with this series you get no romance or sex, and, while I do enjoy reading books about women who are fighters and not weaklings who require rescuing all the time, I do like a little romance thrown in the mix. Unfortunately, you get none of this with Lillith Saintcrow.

Great fun with Jill - when she starts looking into a "normal" death, that's when things start to get really interesting. Lot's of twists and turns, which are what make these novels so much fun. And then there is Jill, attitude and insecurity all rolled together - it's a great combo. Another great read!

This is a fantastic series and Ms. Saintcrow's writing gets better with every book. The heroine is kick-ass and complicated, but not too broody and never boring!

Ms. Saintcrow - Please don't "end" the series like the you did the Dante Valentine series!

If you liked the Dante Valentine series, Jill Kismet is even better. Saul is missed in book 3, but was still an enjoyable read and I'll be waiting for #4.

Jill Kismet is an amazing character and the writing is outstanding. I was hooked from the first page to the last!