I hadn't intended to read this until next month, but last Friday was a really slow day at work. So, third book in the series finds Ray returning to his old stomping grounds in L.A. after a friend randomly appears in his room and accuses him of killing her and their other friends. I thought this was going to turn out to be some time loop scenario, where her saying that is what sets everything in motion, but no.
Ray finds that his old car-jacking crew had encountered the guy who set the events in motion that led to Ray meeting Annalise, and Ray having to kill his best friend. Wally made them an offer of power, they accepted, and they are slowly realizing it was a very stupid decision. Wally, for his part, seems to have big plans, although they vary between making himself a big magic mucka-muck, or giving the entire planet a mercy killing.
Ray is hoping to find some way to save his friends, while being realistic enough to know he needs help. And this time, the Twenty Palace group doesn't screw around and actually send Annalise straight off. Although Ray again seems uncomfortable with some of her methods, and her indifference to collateral damage. He's a really slow learner.
Connolly really seems more interested in slowly expanding Ray's knowledge of what's going on with magic in the world. Ray accidentally cuts himself with his ghost knife, which offers some strong hints it's more than just a handy tool. He also learns he's gaining a rep of his own. Wally is aware of Ray's previous adventure, that he defeated a power magic-user all on his own in the course of killing the sapphire dog.
In both the prior book and this one, he gets a sense that the Twenty Palaces are kind of doing a shitty job in their attempts to keep predators from infiltrating the world. Maybe because they take a scorched Earth, ends justify the means approach. Ray meets another wooden man in this story, who doesn't exactly handle himself well. Annalise says he's getting kicked out, in a way that Ray takes to mean killed. Great organizational philosophy. Like Vince Lombardi said, if you lose, you're outta the family.
'Annalise had promised to tell me what she learned about Wally's pictures. She had never offered to pass me information without prompting before. Now, just as she was trusting me, I wanted to be far away from her.'
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