Kitty & The Midnight Hour

by Carrie Vaughn

I must admit that I was intrigued by the premise of this book. The central character is female, a late night talk radio DJ, and a werewolf. Not the usual combination one finds in the genre. However, while the writing was good, the book itself is the first in what promises to be an interminable series. I think that we can reasonably expect to see Kitty #20 someday. And while there is nothing wrong with that, there are some excellent series books out there, this one looks to be on par with Remo Williams, et al.

Kitty is a new and unwilling convert to lycanthrope, she belongs to the pack in Denver where the alpha male is strong and stupid (a statement of some sort?), but can protect her from the other members of the pack and from the vampire den. She decides to put her experiences to use and ends up as the DJ on a syndicated radio show talking to creatures of the night from all over - which inevitably gets her in trouble.

I found it to be short on characterization, and those characters we did get to know get killed off - obviously to make room for new characters in the next installment. The plot was smooth, but not particularly engaging, but not particularly boring either. A valiant first novel with, I'm sure, more to come. If you like the series books, this one is not bad, its just not as good as, say, Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Its a nice, quick diversion.