In book four in the Darkest London series, Mary Chase works a regulator (an agent) for SOS, a secret society that monitors supernatural creatures and keeps the humans in the dark about them. She’s also a GIM, a ghost in the machine, meaning she has a clockwork heart and can leave her body in spirit form.
Jack Talent secretly desires Mary, but his guilt and shame over an incident in his and Mary’s past has ruined any chance he might have had with her. He constantly insults and degrades her, but she responds with equal fire. Two years earlier, Jack was kidnapped and brutally tortured by several demons, and the experience has darkened his already battered soul. Revenge is the only thing he cares about, but then he’s forced to work with Mary on a high-profile murder case.
Jack is probably one of the most tormented heroes in this series, even above or equal to Archer from book one. He’s so miraculously strong for surviving the torture and then finding his way back from the darkness in his mind. Like Jack, Mary has her own secrets and hidden pain, but she had a better hold on her emotions that he did.
I’ve been rooting for this couple since book two introduced them. Even though I knew Mary and Jack would be fighting and arguing a lot, it carried on for way more than half the book and grew tiresome after a while. Once they finally talked and shared their secrets, and realized they loved one another, this story read more as a romance, instead of an adventure/suspense story. A scene at the end left me in tears. They’ve both suffered so much heartbreak, so it was wonderful seeing them finally come together.
It was also great to see Lucien, Poppy, Winston, Daisy, and Ian again. Will Thorne is a sexy, mysterious new character, and I’m sooooo anxious to read about him and Holly Evernight in the upcoming book.
There are a few unanswered questions. What will the SOS do when or if they learn about Jack’s Nex connections and that he really was Bishop? Also, what has Winston Lane been doing job-wise since the last book?
This book is a standalone, but it’s best if readers read book three, Winterblaze, first. (There are references to that story in this one that might confuse new readers.)
Overall, I enjoyed the book and I look forward to continuing the series.
4 Stars
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My favorite so far of the Darkest London series. The tangled emotions around Jack and Mary made sense in their circumstances. Things didn't happen to them because the plot said so, they acted and reacted as themselves and created/worsened/resolved their own problems. ( )

My favorite book in the series so far! Loved the weaving of the traumatized heroine AND hero in this! So excited for Holly and Will's book!!!!! ( )

In previous books of the series, we met Jack Talent and Mary Chase. We knew Jack Talent hated Mary Chase for some reason but we also could see there was a mutual attraction so I wasn’t surprised that this book was about the both of them.

Out of all of these books, this was my least favorite but I still enjoyed it immensely if that makes any sense. Kristen Callahan writes so well that it would be hard not to enjoy her books. I can’t even put my finger on the exact reason why I thought this book was less interesting than the rest. I just found myself a little bored at times and looking to see how far I had to go until the end of the book. I think it dragged on a bit in parts like maybe it could have been edited down to just include parts vital to the story. Other than that, I love this series and all of the secondary characters who could become main characters in subsequent books in the series.

Jack Talent was tortured by raptor and sanguis demons in the last book. While he was being tortured, a demon pretended to be him so nobody suspected he was missing except for Mary Chase because Jack’s replacement was being too nice to her. She is the one who found him crucified to a wall. Even though she saved him, Jack still treated Mary poorly.

In this book, Jack Talent is killing the raptor and sanguis demons who took part in his torture and leaving them with in Trafalgar Square with a cross branded into their flesh. He’s been dubbed the Bishop of Charing Cross because of the cross brand and witnesses seeing someone fleeing the scene of the crime in robes similar to those worn by clergy. Of course, humans believe the demons are just regular men and don’t understand what is happening and why someone is killing these men but the supernatural world knows exactly what and who they are.

Jack works for the SOS, Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals and is the investigator for this case until Mary Chase gets a tip from a source that Jack Talent is the murderer so she asks his superiors to become his partner on the case which they agree to seeing as he hasn’t made much progress on his own. Jack is not pleased at all with this development.
To complicate things, someone else is copycatting his murders but killing shifters instead of demons. There are very few shifters in London and Jack is one of them. Someone knows Jack is the killer and is taunting him.

Someone is also trying to recreate GIMs or Ghosts in the Machine, a supernatural being made by someone named Adam. When a human dies and agrees to become a GIM, their heart is replaced by a machine similar to a clock. They have the ability to leave their bodies like ghosts and spy on people. Mary Chase is a GIM but someone is creating monsters instead of GIMs. He is using them to do his bidding and uses them to go after Mary Chase and Jack Talent. They are robotic men made of metal melded with humans but the human is rotting because the experiment failed. When Mary and Jack defeat these GIMs called Crawlers, they take them to the SOS lab so their genius inventor Holly Evernight can study them.

The copycat murderer, Amaros, is disguising himself as Jack Talent while he does despicable things so that people accuse Jack of the crimes. Amaros is a fallen angel who has turned evil. He is cursed and is rotting away for killing another fallen angel which is against their laws.. He disguises himself as Jack and in front of witnesses he kidnaps Holly Evernight so that she can help him perfect his GIMs.

The story gets rather complicated and more interesting as it goes along. Mary and Jack are attracted to each other but each are hiding secrets. Jack knows that if Mary ever finds out a certain secret about him that she will never forgive him.

It was a good story and the author gave some more insight into secondary characters like Jack’s acquaintance, Will Thorne, who I couldn’t figure out if he was friend of foe but seemed more of a friend even though Jack was rude to him…but Jack is rude to most people. Will gets kidnapped by Amaros also and is held down and Amaros rips out his heart and implants the new heart that Holly Evernight was forced to create into his chest. Poor Holly had to watch the whole thing.

I am pretty sure the next book will be about Will and Holly but it could be about Lucien or Adam as well. I’m going to download the book now to see who it is about.

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The characters are kinda needlessly enemies even though they're both drawn to each other, so we spend most of the book with them separated by their secrets and pushing the other away, and by the time they're finally honest with each other I was just kind of already exhausted from waiting. And then they were separated a couple more times and then next thing the book was over. I didn't get much of that fun feeling of a romance. Otherwise it was kind of average. ( )