Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre

ISBN-13: 9780451462640

One of the biggest complaints I have with urban fantasy as a whole is that it tends to lean very far into the paranormal and make realism second place. Not so with Ann Aguirre’s latest offering, Blue Diablo, which, put simply, is To Cast a Deadly Spell meets Commando.

Corine Solomon is a woman on the run. She’s settled in Mexico City and managed to keep up a life as a shopkeeper for eighteen months when her ex-boyfriend, one of the many people she’s hiding from, walks in her shop door. She still isn’t over Chance, not what he put her through or her love for him. But none of it matters because Chance asks for Corine for the one thing he knows she’ll give–her help finding his kidnapped mother.

Corine isn’t the only person whose past has caught up with them, but she is the only one who can help because Min, Chance’s mother, has left a trail of clues that only Corine’s gift of psychometry (psychic reading of events through objects) can decipher.

Blue Diablo stands out from the genre, not just because it wholly encompasses “bad guys” outside of the serial killer and supernatural varieties, or because of its higher than typical body count. One of the biggest stand out features of this book is the cast of realistic, almost entirely minority characters and non-Celtic/European magic mythos.

In comparison to Aguirre’s other books (Grimspace and Wanderlust) Blue Diablo is a true blend of the genres that make urban fantasy; fantasy, mystery, romance and horror, whereas the former are science fiction with romantic elements. Blue Diablo’s heroine and hero are no less emotionally tortured, in either their pasts or their feelings for each other.

Aguirre likes the devastated hero, and the heroine whose power costs something. Readers who like mixed blessings in their magic and desperate, delicious heroes will find a lot to like in Aguirre’s books. Nothing comes easy, if at all. Not defeating the bad guy, or winning the day or even getting the guy/girl. It makes Blue Diablo not an effortless read, but a tension-filled exciting tale nonetheless.