The world of Linnet Ellery is nothing like the world we live in, except that it is our world and our country. The world in Box Office Poison just happens to be inhabited not just by humans, but also by vampires, werewolves, and Alfar (fairy) who live in harmony. In her second Linnet Ellery novel, Philippa Bornikova brings Linnet from New York to Los Angeles to arbitrate a case in the entertainment industry.
The Alfar, not surprisingly, have been winning more and more roles in Hollywood, and the human actors are not happy to be losing out. The head of the Screen Actors Guild has forced all sides into arbitration, and the “white fang” law firm Linnet works for has been chosen as the mediators because they are comfortably outsiders.
Once in Hollywood, the tensions between humans and Alfar are escalating. Kerrinan, an Alfar actor, has murdered his human wife and was caught holding both her bloody body and the knife used to kill her. Shortly after Linnet arrives for the arbitration, the head of SAG takes her on set of a movie that he’s producing where another Alfar actress, Jondin, comes onto the set wielding assault weapons and begins shooting.
While Linnet escapes alive from the massacre and is actually instrumental in helping to end it, she is shaken and begins to feel that something fishy is up, given Jondin’s blank face during the murders. In addition to managing the arbitration, she begins investigating the oddities surrounding the Alfar murders.
The book was not what I expected. It’s the second in the series, and I hadn’t read the first, though the book is straightforward enough that I can follow the story without having read it. It does make repeated references to occurrences in the previous book that would have been helpful to know for background. It veers between a mystery/thriller and a legal procedural, never quite deciding which is it, while adding in a dash of fantasy with the Powers who are openly at play within our realm.
That said, I enjoyed the majority of the book. Linnet is a clever and strong character, and her boss David has a magnetism to him that is at odds with the apparent “typical” vampire in the book. Many of the other characters are entertaining in their own right, especially Merlin, a lawyer in the LA office who shares and office with Linnet and helps her along the way.
That said, there were parts of the book that bothered me. I almost put the book down on page 28 when there was a scene between news anchors discussing news where one anchor put down the other one “in a tone that made it sound like she was retarded.” I find that offputting and don’t wish to read books that denigrate with their verbiage. I continued, however, and overall it was a fairly enjoyable if not incredibly deep read, but there were also numerous editing errors that I found mildly irritating or that made it difficult to believe the authenticity of the scene, as when Linnet and Merlin ordered sushi with “saki” as it was referred to repeatedly.
The book ends with an obvious cliffhanger. Linnet is learning more about herself, and there is most definitely more to come about her potential boyfriend John who was forced into Fey in the previous book and was essentially absent from Box Office Poison, though referred to regularly. Fortunately, the ends that needed to be tied up for major plot points in this installment of the series were, and I will keep an eye out for the next book, if only to find out more about both Linnet and her friend Jolly who by the end of the book appears to be far more than she ever thought he was.
Written by Michelle who is glad that if by chance there are vampires, werewolves, and Alfar in our world, they remain hidden. We have enough to keep us busy as it is. You can catch up with what’s keeping her occupied via her blog Honest & Truly! or follow along with her on Twitter where she is also @HonestAndTruly.