Overall, this was a middle-of-the-road book for me. I tend to be someone who complains about world-building supplanting the story but there needs to be enough. There is some but there were a number of times where questions popped up that I didn't realize was part of the world. However, the storyline is there but it really only gets going about halfway through the book. The vampire lore is established and well done. Magic hoods was an interesting addition to the normal tropes.

There is some action scenes and luckily there's only some minor descriptions of the specifics as it's always so difficult to make epic fight scenes seem as epic while not feeling like anime battles. Overall, this is a detective story the second half of the story gets going a lot more with logical thinking and smart subversion to get more clues to the case. Yet, I felt there weren't enough clues to help the reader get to the final conclusion with the main character, Davion. His befriending of Carneth doesn't really add much to the plot and allows for a number of times of exposition over food, drink, and a table. Exposition has to be done but we care about Watson as well as Sherlock.

The second half of the book was quite enjoyable and the vampire lore was well done. The story lacks a weight of repercussion other than solving the mystery whodunit. The world has rules and a history it just needed to define them more quickly and fuller. Overall, I had fun reading it. Final Grade - C+ ( )