May 2003
© 2003 Ernest Lilley / SFRevu
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Wen Spencer's Ukiah Oregon stories owe more to the Detective genre than to Science Fiction, which is what makes them so compelling. Oh, sure Ukiah is half alien, a hundred or so years old, once lived as an Indian, ran with wolves and can't be killed short of incineration, but every PI has baggage. That's what makes them so loveable. Gumshoe guys are always on the wrong side of the system trying to do the right thing against impossible odds. How can you not dig em?

This is the third book in the series, but the author brings you up to speed painlessly with a certain amount of reflection and a certain amount of demonstration.  Ukiah's fallen into a good life, or the makings of one, using his super-senses to find missing persons as part of a team with Max Bennet, an older PI who supplements Ukiah's talents with wisdom and perspective. He's found out where he comes from, and retrieved the memories of his time as an un-aging Indian child, and he's got a pretty good idea of where he wants to be going, with a "son" of his own and a woman he loves. Not that it's an easy road, him being alien, her being FBI, and all.

So, after a harrowing adventure in the Northwest in the last book (see our review of Tainted Trail) you'd think that it would be time for Ukiah and Max to put their feet up and drink scotch in a smoky office for a while. The only problem with that (besides their office being in Max's mansion and my serious doubt that alien-human hybrids drink scotch) is that there's been a series of child abductees and they're all to close to home for comfort, even if finding missing children wasn't his strong suit. Way too close to home when his own son (we'll just drop the "" and let you get the details from the story) is taken, violently, from their home/office. Way too close to home.

What ensues is an action packed chase led by Ukiah, and pulling in the FBI, Homeland Security, his partner's new PI girlfriend, his Lesbian parents, and um...the alien biker gang known as the "Dog Warriors", all to track down a computer savvy cult that seems intent on torturing infants. I know, I know...that's a lot to swallow if you're just joining the program, but it's not that bad. Really. Certainly this setup is no worse than the X-Files, and Wolf-Boy Ukiah is a lot more engaging than Fox Whiny Boy Mulder any day. You can even get attached to the alien bikers. Ok, they're only part alien, but it's got a great ring to it, doesn't it?

The Bikers are part of an alien mission to stop life on earth from being taken over by another alien spoor, and they spend their time (when not playing alpha wolf games) hunting down humans that have been taken over and killing them. They're very direct people. Now we find out that the ship that brought the aliens here had a bio-weapons stuff on it, and some of the products of the alien bio-weapons lab are starting to show up. So it's up to Ukiah and his friends to find his son, the bioweapons gizmo, the missing children, and the computer cult. Without blowing the cover on the alien presence on earth.

The SF aspects of it are fun, though there's not a lot of depth to the alien tech side. More human tech makes its way in to the story, what with PDAs, GPS tracking systems, Humvees, motorcycles, guns and all the Kevlar body armor you can eat. But take away the alien parts and you've still got a great action/detective story, which is why you should pick up Wen Spencer's trail wherever her literary muse takes her next.

© 2003 Ernest Lilley / SFRevu
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