Product Description

Jill Kismet is a dealer in dark things and demon slayer, and it's her job to patrol the nightside. In the cold pre-dawn, Jill is called in to assess the aftermath of a particularly savage cop-killing. Under the haunted eyes of the forensic techs, Jill picks up the stench of hellbreed and something else - something dangerous and tainted. But this makes no sense as hellbreed always work alone, distrusted even by their own kind. Jill's a Hunter, trained by the best, but she's in over her head. Welcome to the night shift ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56558 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
Praise for Lilith Saintcrow: 'A brave, charismatic protagonist with a smart mouth and a suicidal streak. What's not to love? [A] dark, evocative debut,' Publishers Weekly, 'A strong engaging voice' SFX, 'Dark fantasy has a new heroine ... an enjoyable, gripping adventure' SFX, 'Saintcrow knows how to keep the pages turning' Starburst

About the Author
Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Washington with two small children and a houseful of cats. Oh. And a husband too.

Customer Reviews

Let the Hunt Begin
Jill Kismet is a hunter one of a few people who are trained to keep regular humans safe from the darker world of the night side. One evening while patrolling the city she is called to investigate a vicious slaying of five police officers. When she arrives on the carnage she notices a hellbreed scent (hellbreeds are a wide array of demons, half demons or other species escaped or sent from Hell) and a Were scent combined something that is highly unlikely. This begins an investigation that keeps Jill running from one gruesome discovery to another.

Jill is a flawed individual who has had a tramatic life thus far. From the early pages or really right through out the book Jill is at times, clinging to her sanity by her blood encrusted finger tips. Saul is the love interest in this book and it is interesting to read how Jill or Kiss as she is sometimes known, lets down her inner defences to allow someone to get closer to her. To allow herself to trust someone and dare I say it start to care and fall in love.

I have not read a Lilith Saintcrow novel before. I have seen that she has written the Dante Valentine Series, which have received good reviews. I found that this novel has not let her down. Night Shift was a good and highly entertaining book. If you liked the early Anita Blake books I am sure that you will also enjoy Jill Kismet and her tough as nails attitude. Night Shift has gone back on my read pile to be re-read at a later date. I have pre-ordered the next in the series and am looking forward to reading the continuation in Jill's life.

Really sparky and involving
this is a fabulous little supernatural thriller and is thankfully the start of a series. Lilith Saintcrow introduces us to another of her superbly realised tough-but-fragile heroines and in my opinion, Jill Kismet is much, much better than Dante Valentine (Working For the Devil et al) and who i also like lots.

Jill is somehow more realistic and slightly less whiney than Danny who ocassionally gets on my nerves. I adore the backstory she has been given that explains just why someone would put themselves at such risk. Jill's search for redemption through self-punishment and pushing herself to extremes is very believable and the police procedural side of the story also gives it a real grounding (something some fantasy authors ignore at their peril).

In this novel, we see Jill hunt a very nasty beasty capable of turning cars into easily crumpled tin cans, witness her barganing with a brilliantly realised oily hellbread and see her tangle with vamps, weres and others using swords, a bullwhip(!) guns and most of all cunning. If you like fast paced, strong female led fiction then buy this. it compares well with Kim Harrison and Patricia Briggs (some of the best in a thankfully burgeoning niche market). and the sequel Hunter's Prayer is damn fine too...

a decent read but nothing spectacular
I was disappointed in this book, primarily because about a chapter into it I realised that Jill Kismet was pretty much a clone of Dante Valentine, and moved in a very similar world performing very similar deeds.

The frame of mind was pretty much indistinguishible between the two, and consisted of mostly a kind of paranoid hyperbolic headless chicken run. I yearned for poor Jill to stop and think for five minutes, but every time it seemed like my wish just may be granted, tantalisingly Jill would be interrupted, and spouting some machismo remark, run off into another brainless conandrum.

Reading this book was really frustrating because although Saintcrow writes really well, unfortunately the plotting disappoints and the characterisation is a plagiarism (if one can plagiarise oneself) of previous work.

Alas, I look forward to Saintcrow excelling herelf but this is not it.