Ashes and Arsenic by S.M. Reine [Review]

Ashes and Arsenic (Preternatural Affairs #6) by S.M. Reine
Format: ebook
Source: provided for review
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: January 26, 2015

Preternatural Affairs
1. Witch Hunt
2. Silver Bullet
3. Hotter Than Helltown
4. Shadow Burns
5. Deadly Wrong
6. Ashes and Arsenic - Kindle
7. Once Darkness Falls
8. Bitter Thirst
9. The Road to Helltown
10. Wretched Wicked

S.M. Reine
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Synopsis (Goodreads):

Agent Cèsar Hawke is in his element when he’s investigating magical crime. And with his boss out of town, Cèsar gets to pick which cases he works on. He’s bent on doing nothing involving demons, zombies, or fallen angels this time. Instead, he’s going to find the witch who used magic to rob a bank.

Easy stuff. Cèsar plans to catch the perp before his boss gets home.

But when he digs into the robbery, he finds much more than missing money. He also finds a deadly turf battle between two covens and a trail of bloody violence.

A trail that leads directly to his brother, Domingo Hawke.

Domingo wants Cèsar’s help taking down his enemies. Forget that Cèsar works for the Office of Preternatural Affairs, forget allegiances, forget pesky “contracts” and “conduct.” Domingo is calling in a favor and the Hawke family is too tight to refuse.

Blood is the most powerful ingredient in any witch’s spell, after all…

Thoughts on Ashes and Arsenic: Man, Cèsar just can't catch a break, can he? He gets all manner of badness dropped on him in previous books (which, amazingly, he manages to fight his way out of) and just when it looks like he's landed an easy case things go sour. BADLY sour. Like, holy crapballs, WHAT NEXT?!?! sour.

Family. You can't live with them, you can't trust them to not rob banks. Or can you?

There's so much double talk and underhanded STUFF going on in this case that Cèsar honestly doesn't know which way is up. He wants to believe Domingo's claims of innocence, but the evidence points in his direction. He can't trust OPA because if Domingo is guilty of this crime he doesn't want him to disappear like so many do.

Trust Cèsar to get into something sticky when Fritz is out of town.

As always, the action is plentiful, Cèsar's brand of magic is leaves you wondering if he's going to be able to pull things off (he's getting better, though. Remember those early books? Things seemed to go BOOM a lot.), and this magical world is just a little crazy.

BLISS!