‘Skinwalker’ – Faith Hunter (Roc)

No matter what I say (and no matter how much I may hate what I’m reading at the time) I always end up picking up Urban Fantasy, I just can’t help it. It’s a real guilty pleasure thing; the constant angst may get me down but supernatural creatures laying hurt on each other never gets old :o)
Part of the reason I find myself picking up more Urban Fantasy is that I feel this is a genre that has the potential to come out with some really outstanding books, I just haven’t found them yet... That doesn’t stop me looking though and my latest port of call is Faith Hunter’s opening shot in her new ‘Jane Yellowrock’ series. Was it the book I was looking for? Not quite but it does promise good things for fans of Urban Fantasy...

Jane Yellowrock is a ‘Skinwalker’ of Cherokee descent, able to become any animal that she desires. This ability is rather well suited to her role of hunting down the undead but she is also the last of her kind and cast adrift in uncertainty about a past that she can only half remember...
Now she’s in New Orleans working for people that she would normally work against; a rogue vampire is hunting undead and living alike and the Vampire Council have decided that Jane is the person to sort things out.
New Orleans can be a rough place at the best of times and a rogue vampire can only make things much worse. However, in taking on this job Jane may find some answers to questions of her own...

I knew that I was on to a good thing when I came across this line...

‘Vamps and witches came out of the closet in 1962, when Marilyn Monroe tried to turn the US President in the Oval Office and was killed by the Secret Service.’

That’s as good an explanation as any I guess! I like books that are prepared to go for really out there explanations like this :o) As it happened, this slightly tongue in cheek approach never made any further appearances, being replaced by a grittier ‘detective noir’ feel with plenty of searching for clues and cruising down mean streets on a mean motorbike. This did jar a little with me but the ensuing story was such that I found it easy to forgive this disparity.

‘Skinwalker’ is an oddity (at least as far as my Urban Fantasy reading goes) in that it features a heroine who just wants to get on with the job at hand. Jane has no time for getting all angst ridden over the local Vampire boss, she’s busy dammit! I loved this! For what feels like the first time ever I was reading a tale where the lead character and the plot flowed together instead of having bits shoehorned in to satisfy a need that isn’t really there. The reader gets to find out a lot more about Jane (and her relationship with what is inside her head) and can spend more time on what’s really important, the rogue vampire tearing up New Orleans.

Jane is an interesting character to spend time with and her character goes well with a plot that came across as slightly linear (no real twists in the tale here) but still gave me plenty to chew on and think over. A mixture of brooding streets and vampire politics kept my attention the whole way through and the sporadic shape shifter/vampire fights added fresh impetus to the plot (just when it was needed) and kept the pace moving along nicely.

If I had one real complaint though, it was the fact that ‘Skinwalker’ did have a habit of coming across very much like a ‘first book in a series’ kind of book. To be fair, it is the first book in a series but the moments where introductory pieces were required ended up coming across as a bit too heavy and not only diverting the flow of the story but also slowing it down. I also felt that there were times when Hunter was saying ‘Look! My Urban Fantasy is different to all the others and here’s why!’ Cue more explanatory pieces that detracted from the story itself...

Despite this, ‘Skinwalker’ proved to be a fun read with more than enough there to ensure that I pick up the sequel to see what happens next. I’m not sure about that cover though...

Eight out of Ten