"Excellent private investigative tale"

After a decade on the Providence police force thirty-four years old Gwen "GiGi" Gelman works undercover for the vice squad when a bust turns ugly. Several people die and someone must take the fall. Classic example of sh*t going downhill occurs; GiGi is fired.

Needing to eat, GiGi opens up a private investigative firm that seems to be doing well especially when she deftly handles a molester giving up his day job as a Catholic school teacher. Her current case is to find a missing teen. As the inquiries spin between abduction and runaway, GiGi begins to find she stunningly has psychic powers and starts to ascertain that she is not quite human. As she learns more about her elfish genetic makeup, her investigation propels her to apply her vice squad experience as an undercover operator looking into the Underhill gentlemen only club where children perform erotic dances. The inquiries begin to spin into something greater than a missing teen as a conspiracy involving her family ties surface with the club's owner Ian Forest assisting GiGi, who cannot understand why he would aid the apparent enemy.

SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS is an excellent private investigative tale starring a delightful unique protagonist, an elf. The story line makes believers out of readers that Elaine Cunningham's realm exists as the author cleverly introduces her heroine via the mystery. GiGi is a terrific champion struggling with her case and her new knowledge about her heritage that is dangerous to her elfish health. Private investigative fantasy fans will appreciate this fabulous opening novel that will remind readers of Jim Butcher's Dresden files.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 11, 2004

Summary

Gwen "GiGi" Gelman, a ten year veteran of the Providence, Rhode Island vice squad, finds herself unemployed after being blamed for a routine bust that turned into a bloodbath. GiGi is used to being on her own, though, and with the help of a DA who owes her, she's scraped together enough capital to start her own PI business, specializing in"family problems"-in particular runaways who have disappeared into Providence's seamy underside. With a few custodian kidnapping cases under her belt, as well as a case against a Catholic school teacher/molester, Gigi is doing well for herself --until she takes on the case of a fourteen year old runaway who may or may not have been kidnapped. As Gigi investigates, she accidentally opens the door to her own mystical past. Now long-hidden family ties threaten her, and the secret of her identity unlocks a conspiracy that reveals the forces of darkness that play in the shadows... Forces that intend to be the masters of all mortal life.