Review: Play Dead by John Levitt

Title: Play Dead Author: John Levitt Series: Dog Days #4 Cover Art: Don Sipley  Genre: Urban Fantasy Excerpt: Yes Source: Publisher Reviewed by:Julia Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Ace; January 25, 2011 ISBN-10: 0441019641 ISBN-13: 978-0441019649  Sexual Content: A mildly graphic sex scene. My Rating: Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.

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Description

I was tempted.  Money’s not usually the overriding thing with me, but my rent had been raised, my van needed a major overhaul, and although gigs had been coming my way, clubs weren’t paying a whole lot these days.

 

Mason is an enforcer, ensuring that those magic practitioners without a moral compass are made to walk the straight and narrow.  Mostly he just wants to keep his head down, play guitar, and maintain a low profile with Lou, his magical canine companion.  But Mason is down on his luck, and when a job with a large payout comes along, he finds the offer hard to resist.

Jessica Alexander, a practitioner of dark magic, tasks Mason with finding a missing woman and supposed thief.  But the case leads to a bigger mystery involving an ancient spell book that can open paths to different worlds -- something most practitioners would kill to possess.  Mason and Lou are determined to keep the spell book out of the wrong hands, but that could mean sacrificing what both man and his best friend hold most dear.

Review

It is a special pleasure when an author draws both the mundane and the fantastic into their  writing.  In this fourth installment in the Dog Days series, John Levitt thrilled me with the magical world he created, the mystery that drives the plot, and a number of sweet little details about the day to day of being a musician.

 

Despite this being the first of the Dog Days books I’ve read, I found it both accessible and pleasant to jump into the action from Mason’s perspective.  Information was given about both Mason’s confederates and the magical variations they practice without any sort of data dump.  The sympathetic magic Mason practices was particularly interesting, especially the details about how his jazz background lent itself to an improvisational magical style.

 

And Mason needed all the improv skills he could muster to unravel the threats he faced.  The mystery elements of PLAY DEAD held hints of our favorite Chicago wizard, if only because Mason shared Harry Dresden’s inability to see danger in the form of a beautiful woman.  Levitt does a good job of making the story his own, however, and I found the similarities with Dresden superficial if anything.  I wouldn’t have minded a bit more of Dresden, though, when Mason had moments of immaturity where he exposed himself to additional danger.  While these episodes didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, they certainly helped me understand why all the women in Mason’s life are of the ex- variety.

 

The one relationship Mason seems to do well with maintaining is his partnership with Lou, his canine Ifrit companion.  I particularly liked that, despite being a mysterious magical creature, Lou was still a dog that loves bacon, squirrels, and bad smells.  Lou sometimes has a hard time getting his blockhead owner to understand what he was “saying,” and I thought that added a great dynamic between him and Mason.  Rather than taking all the guess work out of the mystery, Lou added another level of interpretation for Mason (and thus the reader) to navigate.

 

Playing along with Lou and Mason was both a satisfying read and a great introduction to the Dog Days world.  While I’m not yet ready to commit to a pre-order, I am going to head back to the eponymous first book, DOG DAYS, to see where Lou and Mason got their start. 

 

Previous Books in Series	Also Reviewed By:
Dog Days New Tricks Unleashed	Kat at DragonKat Catherine at Fiction Vixen Michael at The Green Man Review