Title: The Case of the Man-Eater
Series: Kanaan & Tilney: Book Two
Authors: Jenna Rose and Katey Hawthorne
Publisher: Loose Id
Length: 198 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense
At a Glance: How clever of this writing team to have the creation of their world also be an unfolding mystery with each new case Kanaan and Tilney take on. I cannot wait for the next book, as John and Lowell have definitely set up shop in a corner of this reviewer’s heart.
Reviewed By: Sammy
Blurb: Wolf-Beast and ex-cop Lowell Kanaan recently brought his boyfriend, Elementalist and mystery author John Tilney, into the PI business with him. They’ve been solving cases for Boston’s varied praeternatural communities ever since. So, when a young Terran feels that the brutal murder of his Beast boyfriend isn’t being treated seriously enough by the police, he brings the case to Kanaan & Tilney for a second opinion.
Similarly, defiled corpses pop up around Boston as they race to find the killer. All the victims are pack less Beasts, like Lowell, and the vicious nature of the killings stir up old prejudices in the praeternatural community, Beast and otherwise. Throw a personal vendetta and some ugly family history for Lowell in the mix, and the trails are as muddy as ever.
This case will test Kanaan & Tilney’s strength, both as a PI team and a couple. It’ll take all they have to keep each other alive—and stop a serial killer.
Warning: Contains spoilers from Book One
Review: First let me say that if you have not read the first book in this series by Jenna Rose and Katey Hawthorne, entitled The Case of the Arms Dealer, you should begin there because this review will definitely contain spoilers. This second book, The Case of the Man Eater, finds John and Lowell not only as partners in the PI business but very much in private as well. The pair are practically living together at this point, and Lowell is no longer reluctant to show John how very happy he is when he’s with the gorgeous mystery writer cum investigator. The two used their rather handsome payoffs at the end of the first novel to spruce up the office, and business is humming along with John now in charge of their website and keeping all things Lowell-related running smoothly.
When a terran (a praeternatural who draws their energy from the earth) arrives on their doorstep asking for help in discovering who has murdered his boyfriend, a packless beast, the case hits home in a spectacular way. Lowell himself is packless ever since his mother was thrown out of the pack after having conceived her child by a human father. For Lowell, the case is personal, and for John, it sets off a series of worries that grow with every passing day. One murder is followed swiftly by another, again a packless beast, this time a female who seems to have no ties with the first victim.
As Lowell and John track down the clues, one by one, they seem to lead Lowell back to the very pack from which he and his mother had been banished. Not only that, but a very real threat to Lowell, specifically, has John worried that the man he has given himself to so completely may be the next victim of a vicious serial killer.
With this new novel, the writing team of Rose and Hawthorne give us a few more clues to the world they have so lovingly created. The Boston police want very little to do with any beast that is packless, fearing that they may go feral if they join forces. Laws are in place disallowing such a practice and so the poor beasts live alone without any sense of pack or home. Not so for Lowell, for it is in this novel that we begin to understand that, in John, Lowell has found his home and the two have, in essence, become a pack—something that is not looked favorably upon by other established wolf packs, Lowell’s former one to be exact.
The mystery element itself deals with a rather chilling subject matter—the murder and defiling of the victims is particularly gristly. When you add in the idea that Lowell himself becomes a target, then you have a rather frantic and fast paced story that grips the reader from the very beginning. Much more is revealed about Lowell’s past in this installment, including where he came from and why he, like many packless beasts, is both feared and discriminated against. We also get a front row seat to how John views both sex and intimacy. Through his experiences we begin to better understand the idea of the demisexual life—how each new emotion John feels is a bit of a revelation, as he has never experienced such a sense of closeness to anyone before like he does with Lowell. Honestly, it is really rather beautiful how John relates to Lowell and vice versa.
I felt that more of the puzzle pieces making up this newly crafted world fell into place with this second book. I would caution you that there is still much left unexplored and as yet to be discovered, but I am fairly sure that with each new installment in this series, more of this world will be unlocked for the reader. How clever of this writing team to have the creation of their world also be an unfolding mystery with each new case Kanaan and Tilney take on. I cannot wait for the next book, as John and Lowell have definitely set up shop in a corner of this reviewer’s heart.
You can buy The Case of the Man Eater here:
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