City of Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, #3) (Chess Putnam, #3)

by Stacia Kane

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.

• ISBN10: 0345519353
• ISBN13: 9780345519351
• Publish Date: 27 July 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Del Rey Books
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Berls]

My Initial Reaction...

Wow! That was incredible! Despite having one of the most frustrating heroines, this series is quickly becoming a favorite. And the heroine? I officially kind of love her too!  (there will be some series spoilers here... sorry, couldn't avoid it and gush like I wanted to!)

The Narration...

Thank you for reading this series, Bahni Turpin, so I don't have too. This is a brilliant series and one of the things that makes it brilliant is the way she's created a slang language all her own. But I don't think I could read it and get the meaning out the way Bahni does. Her ability to bring characters to life has landed her at the top of my go-to narrators list (though this is the only series I've read with her so far). If you've tried this series and had a hard time with the language, try again listening to Bahni.  Just sayin'

The Characters...

Chess started growing on me with Unholy Magic. I started to understand her a lot better and it got me past my dislike of her drug addiction. Sure, I still am not a fan of her addiction, but I'm way over it. And I'm starting to believe that she'll get over it too. I see Chess thinking a lot better in this book - yes, she still makes dumb decisions and her addiction is still a handicap (which gets her into serious trouble at one point, again) - but she's starting to make decisions that are make sense. She seems to want something from life and that's a huge step for her. And I think it speaks volumes for the power of love.

And who does she love? Well, even if she's having a hard time with these feelings, we recognize them for what they are. Chess loves Terrible. But, she effed that up bad in Unholy Magic... though I think loosing him was what she needed to realize exactly how much he meant to her. I was really pleased that Stacia Kane went head first into that with City of Ghosts - from the get-go, Chess is feeling horrible about the loss of Terrible as a friend. And she has lost him. Terrible feels betrayed and he's letting her know. Talk about harsh! Every interaction with him broke my heart for the first... well, you don't want me to spoil it for you, now do you? Let me just say, this is a couple that is seriously effed up and I want things to work for them more than most.

I have to give a quick shout out to Lex. I have always been okay with him. Sure, he's really not right for Chess and her relationship with him never felt like more than prostituting herself for drugs. But she ends things with Lex early on in City of Ghosts and I was impressed, not only with the way he took it, but with the fact that he was still a friend to her. I hope at some point Chess will look back at some of the moments in this book and see that she is worth more than she thinks she is, because she has two guys who care for her deeply.

The Story...

As much as I love the characters, City of Ghosts has got one incredible story! The mystery kept me on my toes, guessing constantly. There is some incredible action and Chess is on it with her magic. I mean, this chick has always had the potential and we've seen glimpses, but in City of Ghosts she's downright fierce. The last bit is particularly intense.

Oh wait - I forgot to tell you what's going on, I got too excited about how awesome it was! What I love about this book is that it's so connected to both Unholy Ghosts and Unholy Magic, in true Urban Fantasy style. As in, you won't have a clue what's going on if you haven't read the first two. At the start of Unholy Magic Chess is working with the squad and they uncover illegal magic users - and it's time for the head, Madame Lupita's execution at the start of City of Ghosts. But things go terribly wrong and two members of the Church end up dead. It's the start of all sorts of problems that has Chess doubting the one thing she's always trusted in - her magic, which is Church Magic. She gets put on a case that puts her at the center of everything and it's, once again, up to Chess to save the day. Only this time she has a partner - the Grand Elder's daughter, Lauren - and that complicates the shit out of things. Not to mention she's not exactly a lovely person. I loved every moment of their interactions though, and particularly seeing that Chess could hold her own with someone who's supposed to be so much above her.

Concluding Sentiments...

I'm officially addicted to this series and can't wait to read more. It's action packed, sexy as hell, and bursting with magic. What more can you ask for?

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

[mitabird]

4.5 stars

[Linda]

I love, love, love this series! Chess is a mess, but she's so human, and always trying to do the best she can whith what she has to do it with. Terrible is broken, but they just might be able to heal each other; at least a little bit.

This was so fast paced I'm almost out of breath having read it! And there were so many different things going on it was hard to wrap my brain around it. Chess had stuff going on in all directions, and she had no idea who to trust or who not to trust. In the end, she really had to count on herself, Terrible and Lex; and wasn't seeing them all work together a total blast?

There are loads of quotes in my updates, and I could add much more. I think those kind of quotes is part of why I love this series so much - the characters seem so real because they are human, have flaws and know that they have flaws. I wish Chess would try to do something about her drug addiction, though, but then again, without it she wouldn't be the Chess I love. And it's the one big secret she's keeping from the church as well.

Off to read Sacrificial Magic now! So glad it just was released :)

[Melanie]

I really loved this book!! I love Terrible. I think he is the best character in this book. I extremely glad that Stacia Kane is going to write a book four. It will be great to see where Chess, Terrible, Lex and the Church go from the ending of this book. I am sure that book four will keep me intrigued from cover to cover like all three of the Downside books have so far.