Jill Kismet is the hunter in her town and she has sacrificed a lot. When 5 police officers are mutilated, she knows more than the normal hellbreed are involved. With the help of her friends and some of her enemies, she sets out to protect her town and solve the crimes.

This is full on action urban fantasy. Jill is hard edged with a heart. I will definitely be reading the next. I want to see where Jill and the other characters are going. ( )

Jill Kismet is a hunter, her job is to exorcise the possessed, and destroys evil things that bumps in the night. She's not bright-white-clean either; she made a deal with a powerful hellbreed to increase her senses, her strength and gives her more power in the hunt. It doesn't come for free though and she owes the hellbreed monthly visit with kinky games. Everything goes to hell when something starts killing cops, lots of them, and weres comes in to help.

The novel has a great rhythm, fast pace action and Kismet is definitely entertaining. She has a very difficult past on the streets, and she's very determined to never go back down. After years of killing stuff and defending the innocents, she now has a sick sense of humor highlighted by "Get it? Arf, arf," everytime she shoots a bad joke for herself. Novel is full of very interesting characters and plot is very well built, you hang right on the suspense until the very end. English not being my first language I found the vocabulary a bit harder then what I'm used to, but it didn't interfere with my enjoyment. Bought the second book right when I finished the first one. ( )

A great new female kick ass lead. It was good the setting was the same as Dante Valentine's [which I adore] I can't wait to read the next one. ( )

I actually started "Night Shift" late last year, read about 30 pages of it, and ended up putting it down because I just wasn't in the mood for reading kickass heroine style urban fantasy at that point. I figured it was worth revisiting last week though, so I picked it up, went back to the beginning, re-read the short section I'd already read, and loved it. Night Shift feels to me as though someone very compassionately took Ms Saintcrow aside and gently said to her, "Yo, Lilly, love the concept here, but could you please tone down the angst a little before we all slit our wrists from it???"

OK, maybe not, but these books do remind me of the better parts of the Dante Valentine books (or the first three anyway - I haven't got around to books 4&5 yet... they're on my pile, I promise), but without the angst. Well, not so much of it anyway - they're not totally angst-free - but the angsting-to-plot ratio is far more bearable than in the Dante Valentine set. On the down side, the world and mythos don't feel quite as richly imagined as with the Dante set either, so those who enjoyed the first set for the world-building may not enjoy these ones so much.

Right, enough comparison - let's talk about the books in their own right. The set revolves around the life of one Jill Kismet, an Anita Blake style (aren't they all?) kickass heroine whose job it is to keep the denizens of the "Nightside" (ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged demon beasties) under control. She's able to do this through a bargain with a particular demon, Pericles. She gets superhuman strength, healing, reflexes and power; and he gets... services rendered. Yes, those types of services. And Perry's a kinky wee demon as well.

I have to say right off that I *like* Jill as a character. As previously mentioned, she's a lot more into just going out and doing what needs to be done; rather than sitting around and angsting about her dead-again-alive-again-dead-again demon lover for half the available page space (but I'm not bitter). Not that she doesn't angst... between the loss of her teacher, the wonderfully Russian Mikhail (we only meet him through Jill's memories, but I think he's one of the best supporting characters in the book), and her dislike of the things Perry gets her to do as part of her bargain (and she may well be the world's most reluctant Domme, but we get the impression that it wouldn't be nearly as much fun for Perry if she enjoyed it), there's plenty of fodder for sitting around, wailing and teeth-gnashing. But I didn't find it got in the way of the plot the way it did for Dante.

I also like the sort-of-male-lead, Saul Dustcircle, the were who's Jill's love interest. Granted, he does seem to have shades of Japh and Jace (Dante's lovers) blended together, but he's still, in the end, his own character; and watching him gradually win her over (in a kickass, emotionally stunted kinda way) is realy kind of sweet. And, as always with snarky heroines, I love the sarcastic asides and general banter - they totally make the book for me. Plus the action is, I think, well written. I'd be surprised if Ms Saintcrow wasn't a martial artist herself (or gets someone who is to write the action scenes for her, which is absolutely fair enough) - unlike some of the kickass heroine books I've read, take out the levinbolts and psychic weaponery flying back and forth, and the fight scenes just *feel* believable to me.

Negatives? For me, nothing specific. I'm conscious that the things I like about the book will actually be negatives for some of the people on my flist (kickass heroine, angst, snarky internal voice, dodgy demonic bargains) and that's cool - it takes all types.

For me, though, I really enjoyed the book - I'm giving it an 8/10 overall, with a note that I'm really looking forward to starting Book 2 (Hunter's Prayer), which is on my reading pile now, but I'll try and get a couple of different genres in before I got back to the world. ( )

Jill Kismet is a Hunter trained to fight hellbreed. Her mentor and lover recently died leaving her to fight the monsters alone. As a former prostitute, Jill knows the city well and has the survival instincts of a veteran. She also has a demon mark which gives her more power but not without paying a nasty price to the city’s head hellbreed. When the worst murders she has ever seen happen to 5 cops, Jill is called in to team up with a couple of FBI weres and a were tracker. At the scene, Jill scents both rogue were and hellbreed. Knowing the two never mix, she is unable to determine what to make of the combination. As more humans are attacked and killed brutally, Jill uses every resource she has to get more information, always at a cost to herself.

This is classic dark urban fantasy fair from Saintcrow. It’s reminiscent of her Dante Valentine Series, however Jill is somewhat less likable and harder to relate to initially. It made for a somewhat arduous first 60 pages or so. It isn’t until Saintcrow gives us more background that the character becomes more interesting. The attraction between Jill and the were tracker is less than exciting though, as it seems to serve as a device for her to process her guilt about her mentor’s death. Grief, despair and a fatalistic attitude make for a depressing ride. Despite this, the story is tight and moves at good clip. Saintcrow’s prose is often compelling and beautiful so it feels real if not exactly satisfying. ( )