City of Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, Book 3) Stacia Kane 9780007352845

The third book in this gritty, sexy, urban fantasy trilogy.

Rogue spirits and psychopomps are terrorising people, and now someone is planning to open the gates to the City of Ghosts and unleash the dead on humanity.

Faced with her greatest challenge yet, Chess has to travel to the spirit city to finally lay all her ghosts to rest...

Chess Putnam has a lot on her plate. Mangled human corpses have started to show up on the streets of Downside, and Chess's bosses at the Church of Real Truth have ordered her to team up with the ultra-powerful Black Squad agency to crack the grisly case.

Chess is under a binding spell that threatens death if she talks about the investigation, but the city's most notorious crime boss - and Chess's drug dealer - gets wind of her new assignment and insists on being kept informed. If that isn't bad enough, a sinister street vendor appears to have information Chess needs. Only he's not telling what he knows, or what it all has to do with the vast underground City of Eternity.

Now Chess will have to navigate killer wraiths and a lot of seriously nasty magic - all while coping with some not-so-small issues of her own. And the only man she can trust to help her through it all has every reason to want her dead.

Stacia Kane was born in Illinois, raised in St. Louis MO, and lived in South Florida for a dozen years before moving to the UK with her British husband and two daughters. She is the author of the paranormal romance Personal Demons, and The Downside Ghosts is her first urban fantasy series.

"Gripping... Vivid characters, superior world-building and a wonderful sense of pace... I was enthralled."

"The world-building is unexpected and complex, the characters are alive, and the protagonist Chess is a treasure."

"The characters are complex and indelible, the plot is fascinating, and I can hardly wait for another book..."

(all) Charlaine Harris