In Shining Armor is the fourth full length book in the Pax Arcana series. There are also several e-short stories that take place before and between the preceding books.

John Charming, Knight Templar and werewolf, and his girlfriend, the Valkyrie Sig, find their camping trip interrupted when John's goddaughter is kidnapped. Constance, like John, has both Knight and werewolf blood, and is key to a treaty between the two groups. Both share the responsibility of guarding her, and both think the traitor is in the other's ranks. John isn't a big fan of working within any ranks at all.

I've long enjoyed the amount of mythology that is worked into the Pax Arcana series. This is what John Charming does, he's almost a century old, and he knows the territory. I'm also struck by his believability as an almost century old (regenerating, Wolverine-style). Yes, he's still a smartass after all these years. He's been through some stuff; he was raised by people who thought he should have been killed as a freak of nature, and he's seen someone he loved killed because of him. He has very believable problems with authority. But as odd as it is, he also has a certain maturity. His relationship with Sig is one of the most reasonable I've seen in urban fantasy. They didn't rush into it after some stuff that went down with her previous relationship in the first book, and when their various issues get in the way they work stuff through and deal with it like adults.

I love this series. It and the Rivers of London books by Ben Aaronovitch are my two go-to recommendations for fans of The Dresden Files. I just wish I knew what the release date was for the next book, Legend Has It. 

Overall: A

This review is based on an ARC that I received from the HarperCollins booth at the Public Library Association Conference. And I'm not going to lie, it's the only book I went to a booth in the exhibit hall asking about specifically. I actually don't think I've ever paid for a book in this series. I got all of them either through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program, at conferences for the American Library Association or its divisions, or a couple as gifts, but I have changed my plans at conferences to make a beeline for the exhibit hall if I found out that Richard Kadrey was signing the latest.

It can be a little difficult to get back into the Sandman Slim world because James Stark's circumstances have a tendency to change radically in each book. On the other hand, it does keep things fresh. In this edition, he starts out working for Thomas Abbott, the augur of the Sub Rosa Council, to investigate a missing boy and some council members who may have ties to Wormwood. Stark's having trouble adjusting to a relatively stable existence, made worse by the problems of no longer having access to the Room of Thirteen Doors. Things don't stay calm for long, and a chain of events involving angels, a mysterious weapon, and an old flame of Vidoc's culminates in finding a new way to go back to Hell, with all of the grisly humor of the previous books in the series. And once again, at the end, Stark finds himself in a drastically different position at the end of the story.

Overall: A

The Perdition Score will be published on June 28.