Review: Blood Cartel, by Nicholas Woode-Smith

In Part-Time Monster Hunter, we met Kat Drummond and her mentor Treth, the ghost of a monster from the other side of the dimensional rifts. Then, she only had to deal with zombies.

Now, she's attracted the attention of something else. It's evil. It's dark. it's colder than the dark.

And it is hungry.

The story

Kat Drummond can't catch a break. At the end of Part-Time Monster Hunter, her evolution brought her from being a glorified exterminator to taking down a necromancer that threatened to slaughter her entire college campus.

So of course, [easyazon_link identifier="B07Y2BWPTM" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]book 2, Blood Cartel[/easyazon_link], opens with Kat on trial for murder. Because you can kill all the zombies you like, but you kill one lousy human...

And that's just the opening sequence to reintroduce the characters and the world. The book only gets better from there. Surprisingly enough, the opening sequence makes use of a sequence from book 1 that I thought was a throwaway scene.

When Kat is allowed back on the streets, she discovers that people are going missing in the South African town of Hope City. It's not for the usual reasons. There's no blood from a vampire attack. There are no remains from a monster attack.

When it disappears one of her friends, the book turns into urban fantasy Taken and we're off to the races.

The characters

In [easyazon_link identifier="B07Y2BWPTM" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]Blood Cartel[/easyazon_link], Kat's friends are allowed more development than they were in the other novel. They become important players within the world, and to the plot. At least one gets more back story, and definitely becomes more interesting. We have a pixie with PTSD.  We have a ghost who can't enjoy being dead. There's a goth who turns into a girly matchmaker. There's even a possible love interest who has no magic, but does have the power of bureaucramancy, as Jim Butcher would put it.

Kat,  herself, is still entertaining. Even if it's just for lines like "I've I've learnt anything from my time as a monster hunter, it is to chase anything that runs away." Her commentary on fashion is entertaining ("A zombie could grab that dress way too easily. Even a non-mutant zombie could probably claw and bite through the thin fabric. It was a death trap!"). Her focus on budgetary issues is a welcome touch of reality.

I especially like lines of "I awoke with that terrible feeling that workaholics get when they don't have anything to do."

And teaching her how to dance is ... special.

As I said in my first review, reading the Kat Drummond series makes me look back at Buffy the Vampire Slayer and see a lot of things that should have happened in a sane portrayal of similar circumstances.

The world

The world here is still cute. I don't mean cute and cuddly. I mean the sense when someone says "Don't get cute." It's the only way I can describe a segment of

"[This is a] principle held sancrosanct by the Spirit of the Law."

My lawyer was, of course, referring to the semi-sentient spirit that governed the constitution of Hope City. An elemental being crafted by lawmancy."

As I said, cute.

As we go along through the story, we keep getting glances and theories of the world, and the history of magic and monsters kicking around. Some of it is Kat's observations, some of it is her classwork, and some of it is her discussing with in-world theorists.

Nicholas Woode-Smith also keeps a nice variety of monsters on hand, including a case involving a mimic that learns. He has some nice variations on traditional monsters, even vampires. It's obvious he put a lot of thought into this.

With Nicholas Woode-Smith being from South Africa, we also get some nice touches of local color, like "Tokai manor," which is a real place, with a real ghost story attached to it. Like Daniel Humphreys or CS Lewis, a ghost here is just the remains of the dead's consciousness, not the soul of the person in question.

It's also nice to find someone else who knows what holy salt is.

The politics

While the politics of this world are not ours, there is still overlap. To say this is pro-weapon would be an understatement. Kat even gets an appreciation of guns in this novel.

And the opening court case looks like a certain trial last month in Kenosha. And the laws around self-defense are just as stupid here as they are in real life America. (For the record, the book came out in 2019)

It is nice to see that "Government is stupid" is a universal constant.

It's still nice to see that author Nicholas Woode-Smith still keeps an emphasis on the importance of a budget.

Content warning

There's too much blood to give this to children. The youngest readers should be limited to late teenagers.

Who is it for?

This should appeal to the average urban fantasy reader. There is more of Larry Correia's Monster  Hunters in Kat Drummond than Harry Dresden. To some degree, there is even a John Ringo-like air to some of the characters ("Detonation scrolls" are a thing). There are some great action bits here. For anyone who wanted more of Buffy, or more from Buffy, I can definitely recommend this.

Why read it?

Nicholas Woode-Smith has added a solid entry in the urban fantasy genre that's fun, action-filled, with some interesting, smart characters.