Sue Quintin has had enough of her abusive, unloving family, she wants out and she wants to hire hit man, Tony Giodone to do the job. Tony is one of the besting his business but there's just something about Sue that makes him break all his rules about getting close to a mark. Even though he's reluctant to take the job his curiosity has been piqued by the sad-eyed young woman.

The unorthodox meeting is about to get even stranger as attraction sparks between the two and Tony is afraid it isn't simply because of the impending full moon. Tony has a bit on an edge on your average assassin, he's a shapeshifter and with his enhanced senses he can smell emotions much better than most people can read body language.

As Sue tells Tony why she wants to end things, he finds himself being drawn ever closer to her and she to him. Through a fluke where Tony has "lost" a couple of days, he finds himself about to "change" with Sue still in his hotel room and is terrified that he will kill her in his wolf form. It turns out, his wolf form doesn't see her as food so much as mate, something the human part of Tony has yet to acknowledge. After his enforced restrictions ends Sue and Tony find themselves entering deeper into a relationship that is having some interesting metaphysical manifestations.

In an effort to get Sue away from her abusive, manipulative Mother and sister, Tony takes her to Vegas to launder some money and it's there his enemies decide that it would hurt Tony a great deal more to hurt his lady and then kill him. Through some luck and a bit of unexpected help, they escape with some very incriminating documents.

The bad guys want the documents back though and they are followed home where it really hits the fan, culminating in Sue being kidnapped and a very surprising fight between Tony in his wolf form and the bad guy in the form of a hyena. It's during the fight that Tony discovers just how closely he and Sue have become metaphysically and when she is hurt, so is he. Once again with a little unexpected help, the bad guys are defeated, but not before Sue is wounded in what should have been a mortal gun shot.

Tony instinctively uses all his metaphysical connections to hold her to this life until help arrives, but once again, an attempt is made on Sue's life even as she lays recovering from field surgery.

It's during Sue's fight for life that another shifter reveals himself to Tony and finds out that Tony was not born a shifter but bitten and had no knowledge of others of his kind, of the laws they abide by or their packs. With Sue in a coma and Shifter doctors to assist, Tony and a couple of humans learn a whole lot more about the well hidden world of the shapeshifters.

This is a great book, one that has developed a terrific premise to base future novels on and I'm happy to say the next novel Moon's Web is due out Aug 2005. The book has several very good twists and if you haven't read this novel yet, pick it up. And as a bonus, you won't have long to wait until the next one takes you back into the intriguing world of the Sazi shapeshifters. C.J Adams and Cathy Clamp have a winner here. Enjoy