Back in 2008, Tez Miller and I reviewed the first two novels in Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels series. We’re now three books later in the series, and it’s still going strong. Here’s what you may have missed:

One of the staples of role playing games and adventure video games is arena combat. What’s not to like? The tradition hails way back to the Romans — or earlier — and watching gladiators in the ring is still entertaining enough to modern viewers that there are reality TV shows based on the theme. It is not something I’ve seen tackled in Urban Fantasy very often, and here, Andrews does it with aplomb. Beast Lord Curran has banned his Pack from getting involved with the games. Derrek, Kate Daniels’s teen werewolf pal, has to get involved in order to save the object of his affections — and in order to keep him out of trouble, Kate gets involved as well.