Holy crap, this book was SO FRUSTRATING.

Okay, so Toby is clearly the worst detective in the entire world. Every single mystery was easily solved a quarter of the way through the book, but she spends the entire book meandering around, refusing to suspect THE MOST OBVIOUS SUSPECT, and ultimately triumphing through the process of elimination after almost everyone she came there to save has been murdered.

Uh...good job?!?!

But the thing that I find most frustrating is that Toby is supposed to be so cynical and world-weary, yet she seems to have ZERO UNDERSTANDING of people. Why do I think that? One very important reason: despite it being BLAZINGLY OBVIOUS since literally the FIRST SCENE in which he ever appeared in the first book, Toby somehow still has not managed to even SUSPECT that Tybalt is completely in love with her.

Dude appears to spend 95% of his time prowling around her, pulling her pigtails, being HIGHLY protective, possessive, and concerned about her safety, and clutching her to himself when she is injured (which she is a LOT). He carries her home when she is drunk and puts her to bed! He pleads desperately for her to not be dead as she passes in and out of consciousness from her injuries! She has heard his LITERAL ACTUAL THOUGHTS about how after being lost for so long she had finally come back ~to him~. And yet! YET! She persists in believing this fiction that he dislikes her--that theirs is a relationship of mutual enmity.

Does he actually need to RUB UP AGAINST HER AND PURR?! You know, in humanoid form SINCE HE HAS ALREADY DONE THIS IN CAT FORM.

(For her part, she spends an inordinate amount of time checking him out in his tight pants, pondering his VIRILITY AND MASCULINITY, and spends the entire second book wearing his jacket and noting continuously how it smells like him. So apparently it is not just other people she's terrible at reading.)

I hate to break it to you, Toby, but TYBALT WANTS TO LOVE YOU GENTLY WITH HIS BODY, OKAY? HE WANTS TO LOVE YOU ALL NIGHT LONG, GIRL.

GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

What with the CONSTANT reinforcement of this entire subplot, I can only guess that the author is building up to a REALIZATION/REVEAL but the problem is his interest and her "subconscious" reciprocal feelings are so HAM-FISTED and BLATANT that you are left to wonder how socially inept or just plain stupid she has to be have never so much as NOTICED this. And the fact that it is in first person means that WE KNOW she has somehow never noticed.

Listen, I'm not even saying she has to jump the guy. I mean, I'd hit it! But whatever. I'm just saying she needs to be LESS ABSURDLY OBLIVIOUS. ACCEPT THAT HE HAS MORE THAN ANTAGONISTIC FEELINGS TOWARDS HER. It stretches credulity far past the breaking point!

Man, whatever. 2.5 stars since this has at least succeeded in FRUSTRATING me enough to make me care.