Vampire and spy, Daphne Urban, knows that something is wrong when she is attacked by vampire hunters while walking her dog. Little does she realize that this is only the start of her problems....

Daphne and her cohorts, the Darkwings, are called in for a top secret mission that the government feels only its vampire spies can handle. A ship has literally disappeared without a trace. Is invisibility an option? Meanwhile, vampire hunters are back in New York City as is Daphne's old lover, Darius della Chiesa. Is there a correlation? Daphne is going to have her hands full with this latest tale.

Savannah Russe cranks up the heat in her latest Darkwing Chronicles book! The tension level is higher than every as Daphne feels pulled in every way. Who can she trust? Some secrets are beginning to be revealed, shedding light on past events but there are more questions than ever as Daphne tries to unravel the mysteries within mysteries that she finds herself in. Savannah Russe ensures that there are no dull moments in UNDER DARKNESS as the fast paced plot will have readers anxiously turning the pages.

The other members of the Darkwings are starting to really emerge with their own unique idiosyncrasies. Audrey Greco takes center stage among the secondary characters and it is fascinating to see how she is developing. I don't want to reveal spoilers but there is a scene involving indexers (not to be confused with librarians) that is a sheer classic. In fact, this scene may rank among my all-time favorite scenes in a book!

Savannah Russe takes a dicey political situation such as terrorism and puts it in the context of an urban fantasy series. She does a beautiful job at making all the elements of the storyline work without falling into political rants or offending any one political group. Kudos to Savannah Russe for creating an urban fantasy series that is current, relevant, and thought provoking without being offensive.

UNDER DARKNESS is the fifth book in the series. While the mission Daphne and her fellow vampires are sent on is essentially a stand alone, there are threads running throughout this series that make this book best appreciated if read in order. In particular, the relationships between Daphne and various characters, such as Darius, have been building throughout the series and so nuances may be missed by new readers.

UNDER DARKNESS is exactly what fans of urban fantasy vampire tales are looking for. Savannah Russe perfectly balances dark themes with light hearted moments and a gritty setting that make UNDER DARKNESS a hit. The Darkwing Chronicles has easily become one of my favorite urban fantasy series and UNDER DARKNESS shows just why this is the case.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

this was one f russe's better ones in this serious. if u don't like darius too much you prob wont like it but it was really good and i hate to say that she only has one more book in the series i think or this may be the last one. the only thing was that i didn't really like the ending that much...

I couldn't wait for this one to come out after rapidly devouring the first 4. Savannah writes as if this reality is just a teensy step over from our own. Makes you wonder exactly what the gov't is hiding from us. smiles... Yes there were gory part and sexy parts but after reading the others it was a minor point and the major part was what were they going to do to find the aircraft carrier before its too late? The mtorcycle scene in central park makes me wish that these books would be movies just to see how they would film it!

The sexual content in 'Under Darkness' is explicit and, in at least one case, violent. It also is filled with eye-roll-inducing euphemisms such as "rod of love" and purple prose like "I ... ran free across the glistening vales of ecstasy."

The terrorist plot could be somewhat interesting, were it not for the fact that it comes across like adults playing an updated game of cops-and-robbers. The Darkwings' military liaison acts more like a stereotype (or even caricature) of a military man from a movie out of the 80s or 90s than an actual officer, and the idea that most of the people in this book could actually get high-level government clearances is laughable; these folks are so consistently shoddy that it completely breaks the willing suspension of disbelief for me. Hell, they regularly hold sensitive conversations about both government business and the vampire community in cabs.

It's similarly difficult to buy the idea that Daphne is so childish. I know tweens who are less childish than her, and her behavior is dismissed casually as her being in some sort of eternal hormonal state due to being turned into a vampire at 18. 400 years of experience should have more of an effect on her attitude than it seems to.

This book also hit a couple of pet peeves with me. The idea of spending money on wildly expensive items that one doesn't need as a perfectly valid sort of 'therapy' annoys the heck out of me. I also dislike the idea of an author introducing a violent and coerced sexual encounter and then breezily introducing a plot development to make it more or less acceptable. This particularly bothers me in a book that seems to be aimed at relatively young women.

To top it all off, I didn't feel much chemistry between the main characters, thought Daphne acted like a nagging shrew whenever she was with Darius, and found Darius lacked the depth required for a romantic lead.

I'm sure this book will appeal to plenty of folks who like the combination of vampires, spies, and sex and don't care about much else, but I couldn't get past the inconsistencies, foolishness of the characters, ridiculous sex scenes, and shallow depictions.

Daphne Urban knows after four centuries that "a vampire is as a vampire does", but with her keen insight and allergy to garlic, she has a job with the Feds; Daphne Urban, American spy works for Top Secret Darkwings, a vampire operatives cell.

On a voyage from Pier Eighty-six in Manhattan to Norfolk for repairs, the WWII Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum vanishes. Daphne and her partner (in and out of bed) Julian St. Maurice investigate the vanishing, which her superiors assume is part of a terrorist plot; Daphne knows that the government leadership blames everything even acne on their offspring on terrorists especially in election season when code orange and red are the norm. However, while team Darkwings work that case, the city is flooded with a seemingly invasion of obsessive vampire slayers. With them is their former MVP Darius della Chiesa, now a vampire who Daphne knows is Mr. Wrong for her except he is BENEATH THE SKIN and IN THE BLOOD.

Although too many BEYOND THE PALE chick lit asides interrupt the flow of the latest Darkwing Chronicles thriller, fans of the series will enjoy the latest escapades as the vampire unit investigates the missing vessel while dodging persistent fundamentalist slayers. The story line is filled with sex, action, and sex inside a well drawn mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Able to be read as a stand-alone book, this fifth in the Darkwing series has a fast plot filled with interesting twists--I love the motorcycle rumble in Central Park--and steamy sex. This is a book to devour as fast as a big box of popcorn at a Friday night movie... Loved it.