Ghost Soldiers by Keith Melton (Nightfall Syndicate #2)
Urban Fantasy
July 12, 2011
E-Book
Samhain

Reviewed by Mandi

It’s been a long wait for book two in Keith Melton’s Nightfall Syndicate trilogy. As Ghost Soldiers opens, vampire Karl is in Romania working on an assignment from The Order of the Thorns. A violent organization that protects the world from the knowledge of the supernatural, they have forced Karl to help them on a dangerous mission. Karl is to hunt down a dangerous sorcerer named Sorin Cojocaru, who is attempting to join all supernatural beings into one big army. But as Karl, and Thorn associate Bailey discover, bringing down Cojocaru is going to be a very difficult operation.

Meanwhile in Boston, newly turned vampire Maria (and Karl’s lover) has her own set of problems. Now that her father has died, she wants to take control of her mafia crime family. But the problem is, she is a woman and many of her associates refuse to have a female lead them. She also must conduct all business at night (since she is a vampire) and will never age, eat etc..and keeping this a secret is tough. It’s not just the Boston mafia, but New York and neighboring states are not happy that she is in charge. With Karl overseas, she must wade through the muddy water all on her own.

That sets up the beginning of the book. There is so much more I could get into but I don’t want to give any fun details away. I had a hard time with the first 10-15% of this book. It had been a while since I read book one, Blood Vice and I didn’t really remember how it ended. It takes quite a while for previous events to be rehashed and explained. I did a lot of what? Who? Where? But something clicked around the 15% mark that really got this book moving and from that point on, I really enjoyed it.

The first half of the book almost reads as two separate stories. Karl is in Romania, kind of against his will forced to hunt down a dangerous sorcerer. He is battling heavy magic and learning to work with Bailey, the Thorn member assigned to his case. He misses Maria, and doesn’t want to be where he is. Although Karl has been a vampire for quite some time, he still struggles with what he is. He considers himself a monster, and really is at odds with that side of himself. Being as assassin has taken away a lot of his humanity – although now that he has Maria, the love she gives him starts to repair him a little bit.

Maria on the other hand is floundering by herself in Boston. Although she helped her father when he was head of the crime family, now that she wants control, that is an entirely different story. There is backstabbing and much drama for her. My favorite part about Maria is the mouth on her…she is not afraid to tell it like it is.

This book ends with a cliffhanger of sorts, and I hear all will be settled in the final book. This is a nice urban fantasy series that has tough characters that you root for. Really evil bad guys too. Low on actual romance scenes, but high on action. Definitely start with book one in this series, Blood Vice as these should be read in order.

Rating: B

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