A private detective, working with the ghost of a Russian bear shapeshifter as his partner, agrees to do a favor for an old friend, and when everything goes spectacularly sideways, the ex-boyfriend he left but never got over helps to save his butt. There’s a lot layered into this story: portrayal of a pretty diverse range of ethnic and cultural heritages, discrimination against “extrahumans,” the experience of past military service in supporting humanitarian aid efforts and working with refugees. While this was categorized as a paranormal romance, I think it’s more accurate to call this a paranormal detective story with an incidental romance (including a little smoochin’, but only a little).

The book is all written in first-person from Jae’s perspective. His closest friend is the ghost he works with, Sergei, who is bound to him through a ring that he wears. (This is perhaps an inopportune moment for a colorful Russian sidekick, but that’s hardly the author’s fault.) And then it turns out that ghosts are a pretty important building block of this story. Czoltan as a love interest was a bit thin; we know a bunch of broad facts about him, but he’s sympathetic and likeable, but I can’t say that I came away with a strong sense of his personality. (This is why I’d call this book romance-adjacent—because it has a main character and a love interest, rather that two main characters.)

There’s a lot done with the intersection of regular human culture and extrahumans (which mostly ends up revolving around shapeshifters in this story, although there’s mention early on that vampires are part of the extra community as well), plus all the ghost stuff. Overall, it was an interesting twist on the classic gumshoe, though I had some unanswered questions about ghosts which never really got sorted. And sometimes I had a bit of difficulty getting my head around the physical logic of partially-transformed werewolves doing stuff. Like, how does a person with a wolf’s head drink a cappuccino? I tend to get hung up on the feasibility of physical interaction with the environment, so my brain would stutter over things like a werewolf holding a gun in his “paw” and firing (so do the paws have fingers and thumbs?), or opening and drinking from a can of sparkling water (I guess claws would be good for opening a can, but then would you hold it up to the end of your snout to take little sips?). Still, I think these things were handled consistently, and for another reader, they might not give a hiccup at all.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this story early for an honest review. I really enjoyed this story. The world was well built, including the different classes of “extras”, or paranormals. Jai’s ghost were-bear partner Sergei was a great character. The whole idea of having a ghost bound to them, as their partner was intriguing and smart. Jai’s past and backstory of being in the war was tied in well. His ex/love interest Czoltan was also adorable and I loved how all of his wolfy mannerisms were described including his ear positions and his tail wagging. I’m not sure if the author is considering a sequel, but I’d be interested in seeing how these characters grow from here,