Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire is the second book in the ongoing InCryptid series. I recently read and reviewed the first book, Discount Armageddon, and then accidentally fell into this one, despite owning it as a paperback (of the unpleasant cheap US stinky variety — a plight that even sitting on my shelf for a few years can't fix). As with the first book, I read it in less than two days.

The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity--and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and when her work with the cryptid community took her to Manhattan, she thought she would finally be free to pursue competition-level dance in earnest. It didn't quite work out that way...

But now, with the snake cult that was killing virgins all over Manhattan finally taken care of, Verity is ready to settle down for some serious ballroom dancing—until her on-again, off-again, semi-boyfriend Dominic De Luca, a member of the monster-hunting Covenant of St. George, informs her that the Covenant is on their way to assess the city's readiness for a cryptid purge. With everything and everyone she loves on the line, there's no way Verity can take that lying down.

Alliances will be tested, allies will be questioned, lives will be lost, and the talking mice in Verity's apartment will immortalize everything as holy writ--assuming there's anyone left standing when all is said and done. It's a midnight blue-light special, and the sale of the day is on betrayal, deceit...and carnage.

This is a direct sequel to Discount Armageddon and I advise reading it after that book, despite the relatively episodic and self-contained nature of both books. Midnight Blue-Light Special builds on the relationships established in that first book and the two of them can be seen as a two-part mini-series within the larger InCryptid universe. (I am basing that on a few assumptions since I haven't read the later books, but according to the afterword book 3 follows a different protagonist, so I think it's a fair statement.) If you enjoyed the first book, I definitely recommend picking up this sequel.

Set a few months after the events in Discount Armageddon, the new problem facing Verity and her friends is the Covenant of St George — the secret monster-killing organisation — who have sent a few more representatives to New York to see what's really going on over there. This is a problem since what's going on is a lot of peaceful supernatural beings are calling New York home and Verity is the main person standing between them and the Covenant.

I enjoyed this book for much of the same reasons as the first one: it's a fun read, populated with all sorts of female characters. As a bonus, the shift in the romantic plot line from introductory to more established and with higher stakes was more fun to read. Aside from the antagonists, there aren't many new characters introduced in this one, which mostly builds on the character relationships established in the first book. In particular, Sarah, Verity's cousin, gets to play a larger role — to the extent of appearing on the cover and having a few chapters from her point of view.

Overall, I recommend this series to fans of urban fantasy who enjoy fun and fast-paced reads filled with female characters, most of whom kick arse. I strongly suggest starting with Discount Armageddon, but I expect Midnight Blue-Light Special would be readable on it's own (but would lose a lot of emotional impact with less backstory behind it). I plan to keep reading the series, but since the next book follows a different character, this seems like a good place to take a break and read some other books for a while.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2013, Daw
Series: InCryptid book 2 of 7 so far with more coming
Format read: Paperback, the horror
Source: An Australian online book shop, who had it for a steep discount a few years ago