Samantha Kane is having a bad day, or rather a bad night. She’s a police officer who watches her partner get mauled by something she can’t explain. Of course she’s trailing a case that she was advised against trailing. Samantha sees other things that night beyond her explanation. When a man named Mayfair takes her out of the regular line of duty and into his special branch of the law, Samantha realizes there’s magic in the world and that she’s a wizard.
Samantha Kane is struggling with this thing called ‘her life’, and how it can be completely turned upside down in the span of one week. Her partner and mentor is hospitalized, followed quickly by her father, who slips into a coma, her teenage brother decides now is the perfect time to rebel, and her mom lays the guilt on thick as molasses every chance she gets. Work isn’t much better. Recently promoted to detective, her job is suddenly in jeopardy, and the cops she’s worked with for years, no longer respect her or want her around. Not to mention the fact that Ghosts, Vampires, and Werewolves are real, and apparently want her dead.
Why?
According to a crazy man who showed up out of nowhere, Sam was never meant to be a cop. She’s supposed to be a Wizard.
As an origin story, Into the Fire is a terrific read. Hester has done a nice job of making Samantha Kane a character the reader can root for and get behind, and a character with whom it is easy to empathize as she discovers not only that there is a hidden world, but that she’s part of it. There are dual mysteries here; what is the nature of Samantha’s magic and who is the serial killer leaving bodies in their wake? Very little time passes before Samantha realizes she might be a wizard that vapires soon show up, in particular a very old and powerful Russian vampire who has a great deal of power in the Denver area, where the novel takes place.
Samantha’s mentor, Jack Mayfair, comes across like a world-worn gumshoe. He’s suitably vague in what information he shares with Samantha, but he clearly cares for her. A name like Mayfair seems perfect for a character in this role, too. Hester leads in enough details about the man and his past that further exploration of this character would be welcome.
Into the Fire is Patrick Hester’s first full-length published novel, though he’s spun some shorter tales (including Cahill’s Homecoming, reviewed here). His experience as a storyteller comes through, because I was hooked into the story right from the start. I breezed through half of it in one sitting and finished it off two days later. There are some clear homages and/or nods to Jim Butcher’s hugely popular Dresden Files (both Patrick and I are big fans of those books), like the mystery/supernatural hybrid and the antagonistic relationship between Wizards and Vampires. There’s enough in Samantha, and the story itself, to set it apart as something its own, which is a more difficult trick to pull off than it might seem.
The only issue I had was that it seemed Mayfair, and a few other characters, were withholding information from Samantha longer than necessary only to lengthen the dramatic tension about her past. The mentor-hero/heroine dynamic is often cast in this light, where the heroine must be “ready” to accept the knowledge, but the trope is often my least favorite element of that dynamic. Fortunately, that withholding doesn’t last too long or become an overbearing weight on the novel.
Full disclosure: Patrick and I are internet friends and orbit in the same online SFF circles: he I both contributed to SF Signal for a number of years and I was a guest on a couple of his podcasts so he and I know each other (as much as any people can know each other in the online SFF Community). That said, the novel hit a lot of my buttons in the right way and has me wanting to learn more about Samantha Kane. I would have enjoyed the novel regardless of knowing Patrick.
Into the Fire is an excellent series-starter and an engrossing read altogether.
Recommended.
© 2017 Rob H. Bedford
http://www.atfmb.com | http://www.atfmb.com/samantha-kane-book-one-into-the-fire/
January 2017 | WordFire Press eBook/Trade Paperback
Review copy courtesy of the author
A good full length novel debut, what were your thoughts on the character nod to Butcher’s own work? And the fact of how they ended? Can I just say ouch. As if a gauntlet was thrown to the ground by Hester.