No Good Guys: Trick of the Light

Rob Thurman's Trick of the Light (Trickster, Book 1) features a hard-boiled bar owner who cradles her grief for her brother close to her heart. She's tough as nails and pounds that home over and over again. This is standard urban fantasy, especially when the sexy and conflicted demon shows up to tempt her. Not that she's inclined towards temptation, being tough as nails and all that, but it can't hurt to listen, can it?

Most of this book reads as paint-by-numbers urban fantasy, with angels and demons as the opposing bad guys. Demons are evil soul-munchers, but the angels and their minions are rather heartless themselves. Trixia Iktomi, the young business owner with a old past, plays them both against each other while trying to protect her adopted brothers Griffin and Zeke from the rougher shocks of the world. Then the last few chapters throw in some twists which justify a lot of what looked like lazy choices -- a lot of the tough-as-nails talk was really foreshadowing, not puffery. The male candy that seemed like paranormal business as usual had another purpose. The orphaned kids she looked after had a more complicated history than expected. These were fun and unexpected twists that locked together tightly, providing an ending that exceeded expectations.