When Blood Calls

By JK Beck
Published by Bantam Books, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group
Available 31 August 2010
ARC courtesy of JK Beck

"Truth is often elusive, and some debts are best paid outside the bounds of the law."

Sara Constantine, an attorney with the LA District Attorney's Office, has been offered a new position. It's a little bit different from what she's used to; instead of prosecuting for the DA's office, she'll be prosecuting for PEC - the Preternatural Enforcement Coalition. Generally left to regulate itself, PEC operates not under human law but under a series of laws known as the Covenant.

Sara's first case is to prosecute a vampire for the murder of a judge. Lucius Dragos is known in PEC circles as a vicious killer and they've tried to take him down before, but to no avail. Now Sara must take this information and reconcile it with what she knows of Lucius Dragos - the man she met as Luke only days before and with whom she had shared a bed. And now that Sara and Luke have that bond, can she detach herself from her feelings for him and prosecute the case?

As urban fantasies goes, this novel is - dare I say it - quite realistic. Beck draws her reader into a world of werewolves, goblins, hellhounds, shape-shifters, and vampires as easily as if she were writing about cotton candy and sunny skies. Beck's paranormal world has a legal system and a code of honour to live by and the book becomes a legal thriller that keeps you in suspense and in the dark as to what will happen next. As part one of the Shadow Keepers series, it certainly hits the mark in making you anticipate the next installment.

While the book is not scary, it's not for the faint-hearted - it's full of graphic violence and explicit sex. But it works. And it's damn good.