A review by lsneal
The Kindred of Darkness by Barbara Hambly

4.0

Another enjoyable and atmospheric entry in the series. This one finds us back in England, where the Master of London has kidnapped the Ashers' daughter, in order to force Lydia to use her skills to track down a rogue vampire who is drawing entirely too much attention. This puts a lot of the focus on Lydia for the book, as she tries to deal with both the vampires and her terror for her daughter on the one hand, and her relatives (and their demands that she chaperone her niece through her first London season) on the other. It is hard to say which group is more monstrous, most of the time. The tension is certainly high throughout, and the knowledge that WWI is about to kick off in the background (which is why James isn't onsite initially) just adds to the dread. There are some good philosophical musings about the morality of dealing with active serial murderers like the vampires, vs. working for governments that may bring about many more deaths through their policies (and dealing with high society members, who underpay their servants and generally ignore the poor around them, leading to yet more desperation and death).