This book is the first of a series (don't ask me if there are any more out yet, I don't know) that is going to follow an 'elemental assassin'. Now, if you aren't familiar with the term 'elemental' as it applies to fantasy fiction, basically it is a human who has the ability to draw upon elements for magic. In this book there are four primary elements (stone, fire, air, and water) but there are offshoots of these, like ice or metal, which an Elemental can call upon. For example, our heroine Gin aka the Spider is a Stone Elemental with an ice talent. She can touch stone, of any sort (even processed stone materials like concrete) and get a sense of recent happenings via the tone of impressions she gets. She can also manipulate stone and move things (like yanking a brick out of a wall and hitting someone with it) without even touching it. The minor ice talent is similar, she can manipulate ice and even create small ice objects (wonder if she ever enters ice carving contests?).
So the Spider is an assassin for hire. She had the usual traumatic childhood which lends itself to the transition of how she found herself in this career (do many kids dream of growing up to be assassins?). She is, self professed, cold and logical and patient. She maintains a strict control over her emotions, which I'd imagine you'd have to do to be an assassin for hire, except whenever she encounters Detective (Mmm) Donovan Caine. Whenever she sees him, or thinks about him, she (Mmm) drifts into sexual fantasies. So we have our love interest. Now for the storyline.
Gin's 'handler' is murdered after he has arranged for a new job for her. The job was a double cross and though she escaped, she was unable to get to her handler in time. She was, however, able to get to his son and save him from some thugs. With the double cross she's now being hunted and has few resources to fall back on. Of course the best course would be to get in touch with the Detective (Mmm) and enlist his help. Good thing for him she does as she foils an attempt on his life. So now Gin, Finnegan (handler's son), and Caine (Mmm) are on the run.
So we have an assassin, a banker (who happens to be adept at auto theft) and a police detective (Mmm) all partnered up. Needless to say their interactions are a bit awkward at first, especially after it comes out that Gin killed Caine's (Mmm) partner. They resolve to work together to find out who was behind the scheme and then all bets are off. Caine (Mmm) is determined to 'bring Gin to justice' when everything is over.
Insert lots of racing around unraveling clues, heightening of sexual tension between Gin and Caine (Mmm) etc.
Overall the book is pretty good. The story is pretty fast paced and interesting enough to hold your attention. The character development was decent enough, though we really don't need to be reminded that Gin is cold, logical and patient, every few chapters. You can definitely see the set up for the emerging series in the hints about Gin's past and I am interested enough that I would probably be willing to follow up with the next book. That being said I had one major, hugely major, problem with this book...the "Mmm's". You might have noticed that I inserted a (Mmm) after every mention of Caine. That is because the internal dialogue of Gin was horribly infested with "Mmm" every time she looked at or thought about our fair detective. To say that it was annoying would be a gross understatement. The "Mmm's" were jarring, out of place, juvenile and all around irritating. I ended up skimming over paragraphs that were about Caine because I just couldn't take it any more.
Grade: C
