Verity Price and her ex-Covenant husband Dominic are back on the West Coast again and right back in the family business: cryptozoology.  Saving people from Cryptids (and more importantly, Cryptids from people), Verity figures her days of competitive ballroom dancing are over…aren’t they?

But that’s before Verity gets the call from Dance or Die, the reality show she came in second on years ago, and realizes that she hasn’t quite put her alter-ego Valerie Pryor to bed yet. So she and Dominic are off to L.A. for one last shot at the title. It’s going to be nothing but rehearsals, tapings, and trying to win.

But that’s before the first two bodies show up.

Now Verity needs every ally she has nearby-and some she doesn’t know about yet- to navigate the complicated steps of both the tango and a murder investigation without blowing her cover. Made more difficult by the fact that her official family backup is her grandmother, Alice Price-Healy, who thinks that subtly is rolling a live grenade instead of lobbing it.

Winning this competition may have just become a matter of life and death.

I couldn’t blame them if they didn’t. I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t, because I would be dead, and dead women aren’t usually big on slinging blame around-well, except for a few of my relatives.

I have never read a bad Seanan McGuire book, and this one continues that streak. The writing is brilliant (and funny as hell), and Verity is a likable protagonist. I am sorry that one of the characters died (the remaining victims, I’m sorry to say, didn’t really impact on me enough to care), but I suppose that does mark the final end of Valerie. I did have one question: when the Snake God burst out of the stage, are you to assume the remaining dancers managed to escape? Because they were never mentioned in the ensuing fight scene.

The fact that a snake cultist was passing judgment on my ethics would have been funny, if not for the part where he was holding a gun to my head. “You know, if you  have a problem with my hiring decisions, you should also have a problem with murder and summoning giant snakes through the stage floor.”

I absolutely love the Aeslin Mice; while they could of had the ability to be “little bit goes a long way” (and in the hands of a less-talented writer they might have been), Seanan uses them sparingly enough to keep them enjoyable, and they’re always funny.

“HAIL!” rejoiced the mice. “HAIL THE LACK OF STABBING, SHOOTING, AND FLAME!”

And lo, did the Precise Priestess speak unto us, and say, Have You Considered Hiding In Plain Sight? And we did take our knives of cutting, and our saws of sawing, and begin Making Improvements.

Dominic has really grown on me since the first book, where he came across as an even more emotionally constipated, yet more dangerous, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. The man is written So Properly British. So, so, so, Properly British. I want more Grandma Alice, and Verity’s parents come across as interesting side characters. Her sister Antimony though I’m not too sure of, but I better figure it out soon: she’s the lead in the next two books.

There is a subtle crossover with another of McGuire’s series, Ghost Roads, but you don’t necessarily need to read both series to appreciate either. I would recommend you do, as both Incryptids and Ghost Roads fantastic, but it’s not 100% necessary.

This book also introduced a new Cryptid, the Ukupani, which are a race of intelligent, larger than average sharks (the females) and shapeshifting sharks (the males.)

They are as intelligent as their shapeshifting mates, because smarter sharks is exactly what the ocean needed.

 

This fact leads to a scene towards the end of the book that can best be summed up by

but way bloodier.

The book on the whole was a lovely send-up of So You Think You Can Dance or Dancing With the Stars; the backstage detail that McGuire puts into it shows that she makes sure to talk to people in the know. You can especially see it in the judges; I don’t watch any dance competitions so I can’t 100% say who she’s satirizing, but they seem a little too on the nose not to be based off of actual people.

If you have read the previous four books you’ll definitely enjoy this one. If you haven’t, I would recommend going and picking up Discount Armageddeon and catching up. (And yes, the titles are part of the thrill of the series; with ones like Half-Off Ragnarok, Backpacking through Bedlam, or Spelunking through Hell: A Visitor’s Guide to the Underworld, how can you not love them?)

This series (as least as far as I’ve read) does not disappoint.