HARD MAGIC: Book One Paranormal Scene Investigations - Laura Anne Gilman

From the back of the book: Welcome to PUPI: Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations

A handpicked team trained to solve crimes the regular police can't touch---crimes of magic.

My name's Bonnie Torres. Recent college grad, magic user and severely unemployed. Until I got a call out of nowhere to interview for a job I hadn't applied for. It smelled fishy, but the brutal truth was I needed the work---so off I went.

Two days later I'm a PUPI--me and Nick, Sharon, Nifty and Pietr. Five twentysomethings, thrown into an entirely new career in forensic magic.

The first job we get is a doozy: proving that the deaths of two Talents were murder, not suicide. Worse, there are high-profile people who want us to close up shop and go away. We're sniffing out things they'd rather keep buried.

Looks as if this job is gonna get interesting. The only problem is, we're making it up as we go along.....

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HARD MAGIC is a highly cool mixture of what it would be like watching a hybrid episode of CSI and Supernatural.

This newly minted team is given the task of investigating crimes against magic-using beings by using magic. Magic users are called Talents and use the current, or magical energy, that flows through all things. This can cause issue since it runs along-side electrical current and the two don't exactly get along. Think disposable cell phones a must.

There's also the issue of the two types of Talent, the Council and the Lonejacks. Council is the sort of governing group of the magic users and the Lonejacks are the loners, non-team players. The two types of Talent don't always get along. And the team is made up of Lonejacks and the people reluctantly coming to ask for help are Council. Oil and water.

There are people trying to stop the team's investigation and formation. Dangerous people using magic and non-magic means to stop them.

I think what I enjoyed the most was how the magic use was explained as rather non-mystical. It's explained as a fact of life and as real as science.

I look forward to the rest of this series and, really, anything Laura Anne Gilman writes. I've read STAYING DEAD: The Retrievers Book One in the past (http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2009/09/staying-dead-retrievers-book-1-laura.html) and highly enjoyed it. I can definitely recommend both series based on just the first book in each one.

http://www.lauraannegilman.net/blog/

Five highly excellent Talent beans.....

STAYING DEAD: The Retrievers Book 1 - Laura Anne Gilman

From the back of the book: It starts as a simple job--but simple jobs, when you're dealing with the magical world, often end of anything but.

As a Retriever, Wren Valere specializes in finding things gone missing--and then bringing them back, no questions asked. Normally her job is stimulating, challenging and only a little bit dangerous. But every once in a while....

Case in point: A cornerstone containing a spell is stolen and there's a magical complication. (Isn't there always?) Wren's unique abilities aren't enough to lay this particular case to rest, so she turns to some friends: a demon (minor), mage who has lost his mind, and a few others, including Sergei, her business partner (and maybe a bit more?).

Sometimes what a woman has to do to get the job done is enough to give even Wren nightmares.....

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My buddy, Amy on Shelfari's Paranormal Mysteries, suggested I read this one ASAP when she heard I had it on Mt Git'r'Read. So...I did! I'd been looking for a quick reading story and this did the trick. I also wanted a title for What's in a Name Challenge 2 for the Medical Condition section. Ta-Da! I'd think 'staying dead' is the ultimate medical condition...anyway...

I really enjoyed reading this one, even if I had some difficulties keeping up with dialogue or changes in scenery and characters from time to time. I blame it on the reader rather than the writer as I was on a different shift and wasn't always as alert as I'd have liked for reading the adventures of Wren and Sergei. Wren, the Talent, kicks ass, Sergei, the Null, is a sweetie with 'tude and the two of them make a perfect partnership. 'Talent' is what the people with magical abilities are called and 'Null' is the non-magical.

There's a lot of politics going on throughout the book: there's the Council who tries to run the Talent to their way of doing business and there's the Silence and not much is known of them, but both the Council and the Silence want Wren and Sergei brought to heel and work for them than on their own.

And there's the growing unrest among Wren's friends and fellow magical creatures, human and nonhuman alike.

I'm very glad I finally read this from Mt Git'r'Read and happy that it is a beginning of a series.

Four kick-ass Talent and Null beans.....