Reviews

Claire Beckett and the Transfer of Power by Molly Chase

tatsgill's review

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3.0

The MC was outrageously foolhardy but the book was very readable. I enjoyed the magical city and mysterious symbols.

storydarling's review

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It’s okay but it’s just not grabbing me. Might try again later when my mood changes.

yogicath's review

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5.0

This is book one of the Claire Beckett: Protector of Crescent City series and begins with Beckett’s first day back at work after being shot in the leg. She is at the Mayors Convention in Boston, back on patrol at last but just on a security detail, not exactly where she thought she would be. She ends up stopping a thief who had grabbed the bag of Heath Langton, the Mayor of Crescent City a town she has never heard of. The alley she stopped him in, is the exact one she found her mother’s lifeless body in, eight years ago when she was supposed to be meeting her and the case is still unsolved to this day. She looks over where her mother’s body had been and sees some faint marks on the wall beside where she was found, but is disturbed by Mayor Langton, who asks her what she saw. He mentions something about her mother’s murder and this is like a red rag to a bull, when he won’t tell her what he knows and soon gets her in to trouble with her own Captain! When a close friend is murdered and she refuses to let go of the investigation, she is caught out and transferred to the only police department that will have her and gets to meet Captain Woods of Crescent City, in her captain’s office. She has been a hard patrol officer to coral during her twelve months there and she has already gone through ten partners in that time. Captain Southwick kept giving her more chances to stay as an officer, because of his own guilt about her mother’s murder.
After arriving in Crescent City, she starts to think she must be hallucinating, as streets and houses appear before her eyes and others are suddenly hidden. There seems to be nobody on the streets or in the parks of what is supposed to be a city of a million people, with only one police department. Her starting paperwork mentions things like keeping species together and other odd things, but she is just told to find her new partner and get shown around. She will learn more about the city as she goes. When she and her partner are on night shift, she gets one of her strange feelings that something is about to happen. Shortly after they hear gunshots and get called to a body in the street, with half of its face missing. She sees similar symbols around the body, as she did in Boston, around her mother’s crime scene and her friends! She tries to look up this symbols and runs into the Mayor in the library, who explains the language of the book she is looking at is called Seres Script, which he can read and the symbols only she can see are called tvary. The next day she is called into Captain Woods’ office and given a promotion to a new department, but it isn’t special treatment, more like a baptism of fire! She is now going to be working in their homicide department, which means a promotion to detective that is if she doesn’t mess things up!
She is now in the Underground sector, where the real detective work is done and her new partner is Detective Tork, who just happens to be about seven feet tall, with hands like shovels. No one has quite explained what is so odd about the city, so Tork just shows her a partial shift to is wolf, nearly scaring her silly. The power to see these symbols or runes he explains, means that she is a bruixa, a witch, something she clearly has never known anything about! She does some research in this sections hidden records and son finds out that everything she ever knew about her mother seems to have been a lie! She and Tork have to chase down a serial killer, who has been killing groups of three every six months. Her ability allows her to link a lot of the unit’s cold cases as being by this same killer. They need to figure out who it is and put a stop to them, before the city begins to panic and retribution is carried out by factions blaming the other for the crimes. Claire is putting herself in danger, by jumping head first into the investigation just when she shouldn’t, eager to catch a killer and keep people safe. If it allows her to get closer to finding out who killed her mother and her best friend, then all the better! This case is closer to Claire and her partner Tork, than either of them realise and the killer is about to reel them in. A great introduction to this special city, filled with beings of all kinds and which changes depending on whether you are allowed to see into each part or not, which helps to protect the humans from crossing into areas they shouldn’t. The mayor is taking a great interest in Claire and whether this is because of a connection to her mother or because he is guilty of something, she is yet to discover. The past has triggered her abilities and there is lots more to come from this character and I look forward to reading more about er and Crescent City. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.

nogard_za's review

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4.0

Nothing is as it seems

Clair is a cop that just got back to duty after being shot. On her first day back she get in trouble for accosting a major. Things take a turn for the worse and her friend gets murdered. Trying to investigate she gets caught braking into the morgue. Which leads to her being transferred to another city.

There she learns nothing is as it seems and that shifters and magical creatures exist. There is a killer on the loose and they have to catch him before he strikes again.

I am not going to give any spoilers so trust me you have to read it to find out what happens next.

This was a great read and I cant wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

I reccommend it to anyone who loves books about the paranormal!

angelic712's review

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3.0

The first few chapters had me a bit worried this was going to be too juvenile for me to enjoy as far as the writing style. But as soon as the meat of the book came around, I was into it.

deeangel85's review

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medium-paced

3.0

addy1991's review

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2.0

Claire is a lousy police officer and her antics should have resulted in her being stuck on desk duty if not outright fired. Getting transferred to a place like Crescent City made no sense nor did the abilities she began showing. I kept hoping for a good explanation and was disappointed with the way the plot danced around this topic. Not sure I'm interested enough to read more in this series.

slc333's review

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4.0

3.5 stars Claire single minded, stubborn and reckless with poor impulse control and no life outside her job and obsession with finding her mothers killer. But I was with here for every step of the way. Although I was screaming 'No Claire, stop! Think.' about that warrant.
She is also tough as nails and that single mindness pays off for her in catching the current killer.

I was annoyed on Claire's behalf how people with information she needed just kept saying - you'll figure it out and leaving her to stumble along. Why? Why not TELL her what she needs to know. Basically only Tork did her the courtsey of giving her any relevant info about the town and its supernatural inhabitants even though she is dealing woth them and investigating. And Heath's constant smirking and hinting was just plain annoying. Especially given what he does know about Claire and her mother.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.