Night Angel Nemesis

Weeks cleverly continues the fantasy saga begun in his Night Angel trilogy with the exciting launch of the Kylar Chronicles spin-off series. Assassin Kylar Stern’s magic powers include a kind of immortality; he’s automatically restored to life when killed, but someone he loves then dies in his stead. He’s introduced while breaking into a heavily guarded estate to kill twisted artist Trudana Jadwin, the woman who murdered Stern’s foster sister, Magdalyn, and turned her corpse “into a perfectly lifelike statue made of undecaying flesh.” Following the end of the war that dominated the previous series, Jadwin is slated to benefit from a general royal amnesty declared by High King Logan Gyre, and Stern’s resolved to forestall that unjust outcome. This effort proves to be only the prologue to a more complex mission: the rescue of the monarch’s infant twins, possibly with the help of a magical artifact that Stern must locate first. Weeks keeps the plot moving, despite the book’s length, and makes it easy for newcomers to get engaged in this world. Fantasy fans who like roguish antiheroes will want to check this out. Agent: Donald Maass, Donald Maass Literary. (Apr.)