Review: A Sense of Danger

A Sense of Danger by Jennifer Estep
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine the present world, but one in which magic users (think X-Men type of powers) walk among ordinary humans. Section 47 is a secret government agency which is tasked with stopping magical terrorists and criminals. Section 47 employs a whole raft of people with special skills to help in their mission, the elite of whom are termed the Cleaners, and are magically enhanced assassins. There are also analysts, Charmers (who lure criminals into honeytraps etc) and liaisons (who act as personal assistants to Cleaners). Oh, and there's an inherent snobbery about people who's family also worked for Section 47 - they are Legacies and are perceived to be treated better than the others.

Charlotte Locke may be a Legacy, but her legacy (from her father and grandmother) is tarnished by the botched job which ended her father's life. While he was a Cleaner, she is an analyst, like her grandmother, and her magical skill is the ability to spot what is wrong with something - day-to-day she uses it to spot the mistakes and fake entries in bank accounts to trace terrorist funds etc, but it also allows her to spot when people are lying and sense danger. Charlotte's supervisors have consistently overlooked her and either ignored her findings or stolen them and presented them as their own, she's used to it now and keeps her head down. Because she had to borrow money to pay the ransom for her father from the botched job in South America, and then her grandmother's cancer treatment, Charlotte is seriously in debt and works nights at a nearby diner.

One day Charlotte and her friend Miriam are sitting having lunch in the Section 47 canteen when she spots a new cleaner. Surprisingly the new cleaner tries to chat her up and asks her to dinner, something which she shuts down quickly, you'd rather eat dinner with a cobra.

The new cleaner is Desmond Percy, a transfer from Australia, while ostensibly he's in the US to help track down Henrika Hyde, a rich and powerful paranormal who is using her pharmaceutical business to develop biomagical weapons, he has a secret mission - one which involves Charlotte's work.

At first Charlotte is afraid that Des is here to kill her, but after he saves her from an attack by four cleaners she's not so sure - now they must work together to stop Henrika Hyde.

I have always found Jennifer Estep a writer of complex books, which is a fancy way of saying I don't always understand what is going on. Her heroines are always more clever and wily than me and see about 100 moves ahead. However, very early on I correctly called the mole in Section 47, both based on a hunch but also based on a clue.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It was high-octane detective work with a magical twist.



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