Skinwalker Jane Yellowrock has been enforcer to Master Vampire Leo Pellisier long enough to know that the Master of the City of New Orleans is keeping some deep, dark secrets. The most damaging and deeply held of these secrets is that of the vampire he keeps chained in a subterranean chamber. Joses BarJudas/Joseph Santana is an ancient power in the vampire world. He is a former witch turned vampire, and his blood is highly prized for the magical powers it imbues in those who drink of it. As DARK HEIR begins, a fight has broken out in Leo's compound as a diversion while Santana makes his escape. After escaping, he goes on a bloody rampage, killing and draining many humans and vamps in the process of trying to heal himself.

Jane is contracted to hunt Santana down, but is put in a compromising position. The humans want Santana to be killed 'true dead', while her vampire boss Leo wants him and his magical blood back in his prison and under his control. The killing spree has raised the tension between humans and vamps in New Orleans to a dangerous level. Adding that to the longtime feud Leo is having with the European vamps wanting to take over his holdings; and the whole matter is close to boiling over into outright war with one faction or the other.

DARK HEIR pulls in the continuing plotline threads from previous books in the Jane Yellowrock series. Jane and 'Beast', her animal form, don't have as much interaction with each other as usual. I missed that, but the lack is made up for somewhat with changes in her other relationships. She is continuing to solidify her familial bond with the Younger brothers, her co-workers in Yellowrock Security. There is a lot of interaction with Eli Younger especially, while they are tracking down Santana. These interactions are both humorous and meaningful to the characters. Jane's love affair with George, Leo's former primo, is also going well, if not yet getting much deeper emotionally.

Master Vampire Leo is his usual enigmatic self. He shares only what he considers strictly necessary with Jane, and keeps far too much crucial information from her until it is almost too late. As always, there is a good deal of vampire politics-as-usual with the European vamps and the other clans. No one does back-stabbing, bloody, and deadly politics quite like Faith Hunter's vampires. The practice of magic is increasing in these books as the series progresses, something I'm not sure I'm completely on board with. I miss the badass Jane (and Beast) who took on missions and the bad guys without the aid of quite so much dark magic.

DARK HEIR is the 9th book in Faith Hunter's always excellent Jane Yellowrock series. The books in this UF series build on each other, and are not always easy to follow standalone.