The Devil's Right Hand by Lilith Saintcrow (4/5 stars)

This is the third book in the Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow. Thankfully it was much, much better than the second book.

The books starts with Danny living peacefully in Toscano with Japh by her side. Danny is finally getting to do some research into her half-demon nature and Japh remains silent about any information he could give her. The peaceful existence falls to pieces when a summons from Lucifer comes and Danny and Japh can no longer ignore it. Lucifer forces Danny to be his Right-Hand for seven years. Lucifer has 4 demons that he wants Danny to hunt down and kill. When Japh throws getting his demonic power returned to him into the bargain and leaves Danny alone with no explanation, she ends up in quite the fix.

There was a lot of action in this book and the return of the more self-sufficient Danny that we were introduced to in book one. I really liked the inclusions of other demons and the ending took a twist that I wasn't expecting. Really it was the ending that made this book for me and tied Danny into a mess so complicated that it was intensely interesting. I really liked this book it was fast paced and easy to read. Danny got a new sword and it is awesome to have her fighting how she likes to fight.

I still have a number of complaints. I *still* think Danny acts strange about Japh. She needs to stop being so obsessed over him. I was also disappointed at the pace of the storyline; the storyline didn't progress as far as I had expected. In fact the third and fourth book (which I am in the middle of) would have probably been more appropriate as one book. I was also frustrated with how Danny's half-demon nature is made a big deal of but we still don't know anything about it. Most of these things could be done intentionally by Saintcrow to take us by surprise later and I guess I will have to wait and see about that. At the end of this book I was glad I had the next one because there really isn't anything resolved in this book, just more questions.

This was a good book. I enjoyed it, much better than the second book. Hopefully in the fourth book some of the plot-lines will find some resolution.