Burning Bridges

April 16, 2007
At the start of Gilman's convoluted but diverting fourth Retrievers fantasy (after 2006's Bring It On
), set in a near-future Manhattan, Wren Valere, a professional thief with magical "Talent," and her demon sidekick, P.B., discover the brutalized corpse of an angel. The gutted angel, or winged nonhuman "fatae," turns out to be just one casualty in a heated conflict between Nulls (humans without Talent) and the powerful human Talents, along with the fatae. Not only are bigoted human vigilantes going after supernaturals, but it appears the Silence, a covert organization that used to employee Wren's partner and lover, Sergei Didier, has become corrupted from within. Several Silence Talent operatives have gone missing, and Sergei is drawn back into the group's politics as a new truce falls apart. Though newcomers to the series might find the plot and multiple cabals a little confusing—with the spy stuff a little too derivative of TV's Alias
and not enough fey—Wren's can-do magic is highly appealing.