A well-constructed universe and credible

After Blood rock out earlier this year, Kara Gillian series is the second of Milady editor to give me the impression of wanting a little upset the established foundations of Bit-bed. Dixit so the "Anita Blake bis" and Co. and places the revival ...
We can not really say that the novel itself is as original as Wicked Game but The Mark of the Demon borrows heavily from the police investigation and stories sprinkled all a fantasy brown. Point of coming out of vampires or alternative universe here, we find ourselves in a world similar in all respects to our or fantastic bestiary and is relegated to the field of imagination by the population. Point instead of vampires, werewolves or other in this first volume (I hope this will not change thereafter) but only demons that exist in another plane of existence. The treatment of these is close enough to the vision that is made in the series Morgane Kingsley or demons are not seen as demonic beings but as a civilization very different manners of ours (home, it is above all the honor and the power that counts).
Kara Gillian is a homicide inspector who works in a small Louisiana town. The latter is hardly sociable and if she lives alone and far from everything, it is primarily because of its singular pastime: it is summoner of demons. So when the murders Killer symbol resume after 3 years, Kara is the only one able to identify arcane residue on victims and understand that the resumption of ritual murder is due to good stellar convergence for invocations.

As I made clear a little higher, this first volume borrows much to detective novels with a heroine who is not super strong and has no great power except to summon demons via a demanding ritual. It is also a young inspector in question since its first survey has been mutated to homicides for only 3 weeks. This beginner aspect is quite nice and saves a lot of sympathy for the heroine even though this aspect is somewhat too fast upstaged my taste. I also appreciate the human aspect rather with which it is described with default all that more ordinary: unsociable, nothing sentimental level and even has a few beads. This is clearly a person who lives for his work and his hobby.
For other characters, we only retain the upper Demon Rhyzkahl and FBI agent Ryan. For the first, I had a little fear of its treatment at the beginning of the book (beautiful as an Apollo, kind ...) but in the end, the author will give it more dimension afterwards by doing much less helpful than might be believed (it avoids the nice "Lugh bis" Morgane Kingsley).
As for Ryan, I'm a little disappointed, particularly through the development of their relations or it passes too quickly from friendly austere for my taste and it seems to end or single "assert" heroin being hardly helpful in the investigation (even if his behavior is quite nice).
Level history, everything comes together without dead time and remains fairly well structured. I have not guessed the identity of the culprit before the final climax which is rather a relief that it all stops to ask whether it is someone you met or not. Diana Rowland also described very well the next summoner heroin beautifully detailing the conditions and requirements of such an undertaking. It is really not in the dark with pre codes established for further Kara adventure.
Level romance, this is not as disappointing as I would have thought starting the novel. The relationship Rhyzkahl is more ambiguous than it seems in the first place and the fact that without Ryan cut corners. Moreover, the few scenes of "legs up" the numbers of 2 (or rather 2.5) are very brief and do not suffer from a too detailed description (in done is just flown) and therefore are not too disturbing for that (like me) looking for something else in this kind of book.

In the end, this first volume is not undone for quality, quite the contrary. Taking place in a post-Katrina Louisiana, Diana Rowland created a more credible universe with a plot conducted drums beating. The next crime novel can however put off a part of the readership especially as it easily takes two-thirds of the book. For me, it allowed me to change a bit of the same style if it does not reach to me the excellence of Kate Daniels or MacKayla Lane. It does nevertheless a good book that I recommend as long as you seek a little renewal.