A Flash of Hex review

I have just completed the third of the OSI series, Inhuman Resource by Jess Battis. I am going to review the previous novel, A Flash of Hex, the second novel in the OSI series, in order to talk about more information pertaining to the next book.

A Flash of Hex starts off with the murder of a runaway street kid. This teenager is brutally murdered and then is suspended on the ceiling with magic. The killer quickly becomes a serial killer who murders teenage boys, who work on the streets and are addicted to a powerful and magical drug called Hex. These boys were also mages just before the prime of their power.  Mages come into their full power in the teenage years and their magical prime is in their mid-teens the early twenties.  The killer, an Iblis, killed the children in order to perform a magical ritual, so that it could become an incredibly powerful mage.

 The author really starts to develop more with the characters’ relationships in this novel.  Tess, the main character, Derrick, Tess’s best friend and confident, and Mia, Tess and Derrick’s adopted daughter, really start to become a family. It is a dysfunctional family, but a family none the less. Tess also develops a relationship with Lucian Agrado, a necromancer.  Lucian is a consultant for the CORE. The CORE is an organization that regulates normal humans’ knowledge of the supernatural and takes care of some of the different groups’ problems. Tess and Derrick are assigned to the field, investigating murders of that have anything to do with the supernatural world.  Tess and Derrick are both mages. Tess can manipulate the earth and Derrick is telepathic.

This novel also introduces Miles, a deaf mage, who is consulting on the murder case. Miles, later in the book, transfers over to the Vancouver office, where the series takes place.  Miles is a mage that can see how a spell, for lack of a better word, works.  Miles becomes involved in a dating relationship with Derrick as the story goes on.  Patrick is also introduced in A Flash of Hex. Patrick is the new magnate, a vampire king or symbol.  Patrick joins the odd, dysfunctional, and misfit family at the end of the book. Tess asks Patrick if he wants to live with them when finding out he does not have a place to go.

To find out more information about the novel, you will have to read A Flash of Hex by Jess Battis. I really enjoyed reading this novel and plan to review the novel Inhuman Resources in the next two to three weeks.