Jill Kismet is back kicking Trader ass and taking Hellbreed numbers.

When her own personal nemesis, the Hellbreed Perry, shows up bearing gifts, Jill Kismet knows better than to accept blindly. The gift is a relic belonging to her teacher, Mikhail, and the last time she saw it his killer was taking it from around his neck, after slicing him open. Perry wants something above and beyond her soul this time, and she has no intention of playing his games. Until he offers her teacher's killer to her chained on a platter. All he says he wants is her help in keeping a Hellbreed even more powerful than himself from entering the world. Even then, her duty as Hunter is paramount. Nothing can sway her from doing her best to guard her area of the earth, to her last breath. But then someone takes the closest thing she has to a heart, and her duty to the world pales when set beside the loss that is threatened.

Dark and angry, battle weary, powerful yet vulnerable, Jill Kismet is a complex hero who kicks ass on a regular basis but is human enough to connect to the reader. The choices she must make hit right in the gut, and the plot twists and turns leaving no clue to the ultimate fate of the hero. I usually dislike books that leave questions hanging, but Saintcrow resolves enough of the issues raised to make this a very satisfying read while whetting my need to know, enough to have me slavering for the next in the series.