LIGHTNING RUNES

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

Harry Turtledove returns to his magical post-World War II Los Angeles in Lightning Runes. Private eye Jack Mitchell is still living with his vampire lover, Dora Urban, and spending their nights visiting the LA jazz scene while trying to make a living during the day. Supported by a large returning cast, he also meets up with new allies and enemies, ranging from a jazz musician who has discovered a whole new sound to a vampire who may have fought on the other side during World War II.

As with the first installment, Twice as Dead, Mitchell spends the novel dealing with minor cases. the musician Oscar Ricks hiring him to find out how much of a finger the mob has in a record company he wants to record with, a woman named Janine who wonders about her boyfriend's fidelity, or lack thereof, and Acolyte Adams from Mitchells' favorite after hours club, hiring him to find out who is blackmailing Adams and Deacon Washington. As with the earlier novel, some of these cases tie together and others are just grunt work for Mitchell to participate in. The main action of the novel is only tangentially connected to the cases, although those cases do play a role in his solution.

Although Mitchell has a vampire lover, many of the denizens of Vampire Village have little love for him, staying away from him simply because Dora has placed her mark on him showing that he isn't to be messed with. That doesn't stop him from having run ins with Dora's "half-brother" Rudolf Sebestyen, who Mitchell rescued against his will in Twice as Dead, or unrepentant Confederate vampire Bedford Tyler, who saw Mitchell as inferior for being both human and having Black blood, or newly arrived vampire Lothar Kreuzbach, who Mitchell recognized as a fylfot officer, Turtledove's version of a Nazi. Adding to Mitchell's concerns is the presence of a werewolf showing up once a month in Vampire Village and Mitchell's adoption of a second cat, Mehitabel, which causes issues with Old Man Mose, the cat already living in Mitchell's office.

Having learned about Assyrian religion and magic in Twice as Dead, in Lightning Runes Mitchell finds himself face to face with Egyptian religion. The werewolf that is plaguing Vampire Village has an army of werejackals under its control and an encounter with Shenouda Youhanna, who runs a shop called Ancient Egypt and deals with Egyptian artifacts and replicas. Through Youhanna, Mitchell begins to connect the werewolf to the Egyptian god Anubis. It also raises some questions about religion in Mitchell's world. Mitchell makes it clear that vampires can't stand the name of god or references to the bible. Since Rivke, a Jewish "shabbos goy" who protects Vampire Village during the day is able to fend off Kreuzbach using a star of David, the religious symbols used against vampires don't have to be their own, but it is unclear exactly which religious symbols can be used or who needs to believe in them, which is an issue which Turtledove's characters acknowledge, even if they don't offer an explanation.

The novels in the City of Shadows series offer a twist on the standard detective noir genre, not only introducing magic and eldritch creatures, but also introducing mysteries which are not straightforward, allowing Turtledove to play with the tropes of the genre while introducing the reader (and his characters) to new aspects of his world as the clues begin to click together. Focusing on Mitchell and his growing collections of friends and collaborators (and enemies) gives the series an open-endedness as each book can stand on its own and doesn't present an ultimate goal to which the series is moving.

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