A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuireMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I had placed a hold on this at the same time as Rosemary and Rue, and forgot about it. So I was surprised when I got it from the library, and not enthusiastic as I had not been impressed with book 1. My trepidations were well-founded.
First the good: McGuire pays attention to world-building, and obviously delights in introducing new flavors of changeling and fae. There are cool ideas in A Local Habitation, perhaps the coolest being the idea of a dryad living in a data tree. (That is so cool, truly.) The plot is more focused here, which is also good.
Also, like in book 1, the mystery is so well-telegraphed I guessed the killer's identity before the first dead body shows up.
The truly fatal flaw, though, is Toby Daye herself. We can't get a good sense of her character. She is supposedly a good PI, a tough bodyguard knighted for her services. But we still don't actually see that. The first scene finds her tottering home drunk in stilettos so that alpha-werecat she has flirt-fights with can carry her home and tuck her in to bed. Then she gets sent to "babysit" (bodyguard) a royal connection, and not only does she have spectacular failure of spidey-sense again, she has brag-fail. As soon as the first body shows up she actually brags to the person-in-charge that the need her. She's the expert, the "mechanic". And she fails completely to fix the car which then roars off the hill and kills the driver (figuratively speaking).
Moral, if you are a character in Toby's universe and she comes along to help you, run away as fast as you can.
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