Review: Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep

Favorite Lines: “Last word she ever said. I flicked my wrist, and the sharp point of the screw zipped across the room and sank into her throat, puncturing her windpipe. Ace. Evelyn’s scream turned into a whistling wheeze. She slid from her plastic chair and hit the floor. Her hand wrapped around the screw, and she pulled it free. Blood spattered onto the carpet, looking like an abstract Rorschach pattern. Stupid of her. She might have lived another minute if she’d left it in her throat.” (p. 7)

Gin, aka Spider is an assassin who works at a barbecue restaurant called the Pork Pit. Her handler Fletcher lines up well paying assignments for her, but she’s also been known to take on pro bono cases as well. Gin is more than a talented killer, she is a Stone elemental who can also call Ice magic.

When a quick and easy killing goes wrong, Gin finds her handler dead and herself on the run. It leads her to Detective Donovan Caine, a man who doesn’t know what he wants from her. The Spider killed his partner.

Working together in order to stay alive, the two follow the trail of corruption in various directions while trying to stay ahead of an Air elemental who isn’t afraid to get her hands a little bloody.

Reading about an assassin is not high on my to do list, well it wasn’t before I read Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep. Now I can’t wait for the next installment about the elemental assassin. Told in first person, the story jumps into action with a murder gone right and keeps on running. While there were no huge surprises in the story, the well-rounded characters made the reading enjoyable. The ability for all characters to grow helped endear them to me, and there wasn’t one person that I wanted to die. Add the possibility of Gin and the detective having sex and you’ve got tension that seems to be building up to an orgasm.

I’m not a huge fan of Donovan Caine, but I appreciate the way Gin handles him. She isn’t snippy nor does she ever try to cram information down his throat. She kinda steps aside and lets him figure it out. She recognizes Donovan’s dilemma of brain versus body. His body wants Gin, but his mental aversion keeps her at bay.

I love books with a quick pace, interesting people and endings that don’t feel forced which makes Spider’s Bite a winner with me, if you couldn’t already tell. Book two, Web of Lies, will be released May 25, 2010, according to Amazon. I think this book will dig into the Spider’s past and picks up soon after the end of Spider’s Bite.