Shadow Hunter

 

By BR Kingsolver

When Erin was a preteen, she began to come into her magical powers and was adopted by the Illuminati and trained to be a Hunter, an assassin who uses both magic and martial arts to eliminate evildoers who are upsetting the balance. Or so she was told.

Turned out all that was a lie. She was actually eliminating road blocks to the Illuminati's plans for world domination. She found this out when she was sent to murder William Strickland. According to her master, Strickland was a sorcerer and practitioner of the Dark Arts and that he had created a superweapon that the Illuminati wanted. 

As Strickland lay dying from her attack, he told her the nature of the weapon, a small crystal ball: "It shows truth. Look through it when a man speaks, and it shows his lies. Look at a spell or a book or a work of art to see how true it is. Watch an Illuminati ritual and see the blood and the Darkness hidden beneath the surface."

He also warns Erin that of the crystal's other power: "Take that to your masters, and they will destroy it. But in the process, it will destroy them."

Erin takes the crystal and views Strickland through it. It shows her that he was dying. But she also saw: "...he was a wizard of the Light, and felt, though I couldn't tell how, that everything he had told me was the truth."

Leaving the dying man, Erin is confronted by his daughter:

'"He said you would come, and you would kill him."

"He may yet live," I said, "but he is dying."

"And you have the crystal?"

"Yes."

"Then you need this as well," she said holding out a book.

. . . The book was black leather trimmed in gold. The title, in the secret language of the Illuminati, said, "The History of the Illuminati."

"Read it," she said. "He said—my father said—that you must read it." She gave me a grin that was so malevolent I took a step back. "They will kill you when you take it to them, whether you read it or not. I hope you're stupid enough to believe their lies."'

Erin does read the book and discovers Strickland hadn't lied about the true nature of the Illuminati and what she had been doing for them: "Rather than being a force for the Light, I had advanced the reach of the Dark."

She takes the crystal to her master and leaves it in his hands, without the warning that Strickland gave her. True to what he said, crystal detonates and leaves the hidden city of the Illuminati vaporized with no trace left to show it had ever existed. The location where it had stood was now pristine wilderness.

Even though that was the end of the Illuminati stronghold, Erin knows the members are scattered all through the world in the places of influence and power and wealth. Her split from the group has put her life in danger and she goes into hiding, ending up in Westport, a city on the western coast of the USA. She quickly finds a job as a bartender and just as quickly discovers that Westport is a hive of magical activity and conflict between supernaturals like werewolves and vampires. Even the bar where she works is part of it, a haven for magically gifted people like herself, mages, wizards, shapeshifters, even vampires occasionally.

But that's not all she discovers. An Illuminati assassin, a Hunter, is in town and is behind a number of mysterious deaths among the supernatural communities. It appears the Illuminati are up to their usual tricks, fomenting disorder in order to gain some kind of advantage in Westport and increase their influence. Erin finds herself entangled in this conflict and trying to help her newfound friends and community survive the Illuminati machinations and still keep her presence hidden from the Hunter and his Illuminati cohorts.

This was an OK read. It goes from Erin learning how to pretend to be an ordinary person to battles with supernaturals that show she certainly is not a ordinary person. Which quickly becomes apparent to those around her and raises many questions about her past that she, for her own safety, will not share.

There are so many supernatural battle scenes, which are just like all battle scenes, just with magic thrown in. To me, no more interesting than all fictional battle scenes, boring. So, bartend for a bit, meet some folks for a bit, battle. Repeat over and over again. 

Normally, I would classify this as a book that would appeal mostly to female readers. But the battle after battle scenes reads more like a book for male readers, who are more inclined to enjoy that than most female readers. Yes, I know there are exceptions, whatever.