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Editorial Review Product Description
A sexy witch who writes romances and a police detective who sees more than mortal man team up to battle an ancient Aztec god!
Dallas Police Detective Mark Valdez isn't just any cop, he's a psychic who knows that the cattle mutilations and torture murders he's been investigating are somehow tied together.He also knows that his meager psychic abilities aren't enough to identify the killers, much less stop them.
Luckily, Mark has an ace up his sleeve:an attractive young romance novelist who happens to be a practicing witch.And not just any witch, either-Diana Tregarde is a Guardian, charged with protecting the Earth and all its creatures.
Using modern science and ancient magics, Diana and Mark discover that they are tailing no ordinary serial killer but the awakened avatar of an Aztec god.Tezcatlipoca and his four beautiful handmaidens are preparing for a great sacrifice that will transform North America into a new Aztec realm.
Diana isn't sure her powers are strong enough to take on those of a risen Aztec god, but she has no choice.As a Guardian, she is sworn to protect mankind, even at the cost of her own life.Luckily, she does not stand alone.Mark Valdez is more than just a cop.And Tezcatlipoca is not the only Aztec god walking in the world.
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Divine Possession
Burning Water (1989) is the first Fantasy novel in the Diana Tregarde series.It is set in the contemporary period within Dallas-Fort Worth.The area had suffered from a series of cattle mutilations and ritual human killings.
In this novel, Diana Tregarde is a consultant on occult affairs.She has worked for the Hartford Police Department.While not advertising the fact, Di is also a witch.
Mark Valdez is a Detective in the Dallas Police Department.He had worked on her Spook Squad while in college.He has recommended Di as a consultant on the series of killings.
Juanita Valdez is Marks's aunt.Nita comes from a Haciendas family that has been rich since before the Republic.But they had lost most of the wealth during the Depression.Now she takes in young female boarders in her mansion.
Samuel Clemens Grimes is Chief of Detectives in the Dallas Police Department.He maintains a good old country boy image, but is the sharpest detective in the DPD.
In this story, Mark is waiting at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport for Diana's flight to arrive.
Mark remembers when he and three college buddies tried to raise a ghost.They were thoroughly drunk, but the ritual worked.Diana had saved him from being possessed by the spirit.Then she insisted on putting shields on him to protect his mind from possession.
They have already changed the flight number once and he is not really sure of which plane she will be on.He checks with the desk and learns that Diana is listed on the flight, but he still isn't certain until Di does arrive on the proper plane.
Mark takes Diana to luggage claim to pick up her bags.He has arranged for her to stay with his aunt Nita.Di agrees to the arangements.
On the way to the house, Mark briefs Di on the strange happenings in the county.He also tells her that most of the talented in the area have fled to other cities.Insofar as he knows, there is not a single Rom left in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Then Diana senses violence, but has trouble lining up on the location.She has Mark drive around and steers him closer to the scene.When they arrive at the site, a squad car has just arrived.
A hated DP manager has been sacrificed on a boulder in a park.He is lying naked and spread-eagled on the rock.He was mutilated and the heart has been cut out of his chest.
Diana meets Chief Grimes at the park.He is very impressed by her knowledge and methodical approach.He assigns Mark to work together with her as an independent team.He has the proper identification and permits issued to her, assigns her a handgun,and has Mark introduce her to the various DPD personnel.
Diana recognizes the ritual nature of the death, but it does not match anything the she knows.It has elements of several types of blood sacrifice, but nothing fits the current pattern.Then the killers take three children and drown them in a cattle tank.
This tale has Diana believing that she knows something about the ritual, but she just can't pin down the memory.This leads her to suspect that the killers have set magical traps to confuses her memory.So Di and Mark follow every lead and also search out others with psychic talents.
The identity of the killers is obvious to the readers, but Diana has to work for the answer.The next installment is Children of the Night.Read and enjoy!
This series was very popular among Fantasy readers.But then the author was stalked by a confused fan.So the author quit writing in the series.She wrote a similar book a few years later -- Sacred Ground -- but nothing featuring Diana Tregarde.
Highly recommended for Lackey fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of psychic talents, angry gods, and determined private investigators of the occult.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Not bad for an early work
This book wasn't bad as far as plot goes. I know some Wicca practictioners roll their eyes at the idea of psi-bolts and empathic healers who remove bruises with a touch, but come on--this is a BOOK. It's supposed to offer something above reality. I enjoyed "Charmed" too, and didn't worry about the Hollywood effects, nor was I offended by its portrayal of Wicca.
The only thing I wish Lackey had done in this book was a little more research into real brujeria/curanderismo. It's clear she took the scene with the Bruja straight from M.L. Devine's Llewellyn book (originally titled "Brujeria", subsequently released as "Magic from Mexico".) There were already books on curanderismo out there...I'd read them years before this book was published. Would have been nice to have a touch of reality here; although Devine's book was good, it was not what a majority of Brujas practice.
Too many POV's & very dated
I love the urban fantasy genre, but I just couldn't get into this
book.It was written in the 1980's and boy does it feels dated.The
author also jumps from multiple POV's within each chapter (there were
at least five different POV jumps in the first three chapter alone,
more if you count switching back and forth between already revealed
POV).Also, this is supposed to be the first in the Diana Tregarde
Investigation series , but she is not the main character, a male
detective, Mark Valdez is.
I gave this book my standard three chapter test, which few books
fail, but I couldn't read anymore.Take a pass on this one.
good, but could have been better
Diana Tregarde is a witch, and she's consulted by a friend in Texas to come help with a peculiar series of murders that have occult overtones. It's an exciting, engrossing story that fits right in with the contemporary fantasy genre that's very popular now--unfortunately, it appears that Lackey was ahead of her time, and in the late 80s, early 90s, the series just didn't sell very well. I'd suspect it would sell now, but maybe not--it ends up feeling a little... unsophisticated, when compared with current offerings in the same niche.
And maybe that was always the problem. Burning Water is a straightforward paranormal mystery/adventure story, with no romance muddying the waters, and very little change in the characters. Not much emotional turmoil, either. It's Agatha Christie in a J. D. Robb world.
I'm quite fond of that analogy, as it describes my feelings about the book very well. It's urban fantasy's version of the cozy mystery. In fact, my complaints about the book have very little to do with the plot, and mostly to do with the writing.
My one plot-related complaint is that, while Diana's missing the Aztec connection was very well explained (and a plot point that I enjoyed very much), it doesn't explain why nobody else caught it. Perhaps that's due to the times, too, though I have trouble believing that. I'm pretty sure that in 1989 the Aztecs would have been familiar to most people.
So the plot was mostly fine, but the writing tics kept throwing me out of the book time after time. Italics were overused to the point where it made the book physically hard to read. Some internal thoughts were italicized, some weren't, adding to the confusion. Then there was the use of dialect. Rule of thumb for writing accents: write it out phonetically for one or two sentences, then trust the reader to remember that the character speaks with an accent. Don't put it in every line of dialogue and all the character's thoughts as well. It's hard to read. You'll lose your readers.
And then there was the itty-bitty thing that made me lose my patience, and ended up overshadowing the entire story--the one thing I didn't have to refresh my memory about even though it's been 3 weeks since I read this: "ack-emma." Every single character in the entire book refers to morning as "ack-emma." It drove me up the freaking wall, to the point where I had to look it up. Thank-you, Wikipedia, for explaining that it's... get this... WWI (that's ONE) British Army phonetic-alphabet slang. Bashing my head on the desk here. I can understand one character using this slang, as part of their personality. I can even stretch that to including someone who's a close friend or coworker who's picked it up. But people they've never met before? ARRRRGGGHHH.
I swear, without the darn "ack-emma," it would have been 4.5 stars, it irritated me that badly. I know, I know. Let it go. I'm trying.
2nd of the Diana Tregarde mysteries - wonderfully exciting and scary!
This is the second Diana Tregarde books - after "Children of the Night" - and it is a terrific book.In it, Diana is called to Texas by her old friend Mark Valdez, to investigate a grisly series of murders and animal mutilation.At first stymied, she eventually learns that someone is apparently trying to call down the old Aztec god known in English as Smoking Mirror and is calling himself Burning Water.This is a fascinating book, bringing in aspects of Aztec and Mestizo culture as well as referring to the older culture of the Toltecs.Lots of near scrapes for Diana makes this one a quick read.A must-have in the library of anyone who likes Mercedes Lackey in general, who enjoyed the earlier Anita Blake books and/or the new works by Kim Harrison.
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Disappointing