Cal and Nikos Leandros are half-brothers who run a detective and bodyguard agency in Manhattan, where vampires, werewolves, ratmen, peris and pucks are commonplace. Their best friend is none other than Robin Goodfellow, who considers it a lucrative art form to teach humans to not be gullible in matters of used car sales or games of poker. Niko’s girlfriend is a vampire named Promise; Cal has broken up with his girlfriend Georgina, partly because he hopes the separation will protect her, partly because a psychic girlfriend can be disconcerting; but he has a friends-with-benefits relationship with Delilah, a werewolf who works as a bouncer.

Cal is only half-human, the result of a breeding experiment on the part of the monstrous Auphe, who are like the creatures out of Alien with the ability to gate between worlds, intent on making Earth their buffet table. Unfortunately for Cal, nobody, not even the werewolf mafia, likes the Auphe, and a half-Auphe is about as popular as a carrier of Ebola. Unfortunately for the Auphe, Cal and Niko are very good at taking out monsters, so good in fact that the Auphe are on the verge of extinction. The remaining Auphe now have a double-agenda: claim Cal as one of their own, and destroy all his ties to the human world by killing anyone close to him.

But even when you are fighting for your life, you still need to eat and pay the rent.

What starts out as a simple bodyguard job turns into a deadly triangle, like a classic film noir. Promise got them the job, but she and the artist they are guarding, a vampire named Seamus, have a history; and while for Promise that history is firmly in the past tense, Seamus sees it as progressive, and Niko as an obstacle. Now Cal wants to protect his brother from more than just murderous Auphe, and which is the worse threat, Seamus or Promise: violence or betrayal?

There’s lots more, including a guardian of the Amazon forests who shows up in Manhattan, but I really don’t want to spoil the surprises. I strongly recommend Deathwish, for its blend of snarky dialogue, martial arts, complex plotting, and supernatural cast of characters. The action is told from two perspectives, as Cal and Niko alternate narratives. They have very different viewpoints and voices, and there are things that one brother either cannot or will not say, but the other does. My only complaint is that Thurman’s narrative voice is occasionally repetitive.

The author brings the story arc to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion, whether this means an end to the series or simply a hiatus; either way, the next Thurman fantasy will have a new protagonist and setting: a Las Vegas bar owner named Trixa Iktomi. Trick of the Light looks to be a good mix of Trickster and apocalyptic storytelling, from this trickster-author. With luck, we’ll get to review it in the next issue. ~~ Chris Paige