New Tricks by John Levitt

Mason is a magician, a practitioner who used to be an enforcer. Unfortunately, he wasn't really good as an enforcer, and so quit to do other things. To support himself, he plays guitar, and though his main interest and specialty is jazz, he takes a gig playing in an all-girl band after their guitarist broke her arm falling off the stage drunk.

But he's troubled by an earlier meeting with his former boss as an enforcer, Victor. Victor was meeting a woman who had some disturbing information to impart to him, and when she doesn't show, he calls on Mason's magical gift of tracking to find her. They find her sitting on a bench in the park, but she won't be telling anyone anything ever again. Someone has tried to take over her body with magic, and when that didn't work, trepanned her skull with a drill over her third eye. Her body may be living, but the soul is gone with nothing to retrieve.

After his gig, Mason meets an old friend of his, a practitioner named Rolando. They used to be close, but all that changed when Rolando moved from San Francisco to Portland. Portland has a smaller magical community, so he's a bigger fish in that small pond. But he's returned to San Francisco with his sister, Josephine, for a reason. The body of the practicioner that Mason and Victor found carries the same imprint as a number of bodies that have been turning up in Portland, all with mind-problems indicating that someone had tried to take them over but failed.

They even have a suspect, a black magic practitioner named Byron, who recently moved from Portland to San Francisco. Coincidentally, when he left Portland, the attacks on people there stopped, and now that he's moved to SF, a body very similar to the ones in Portland shows up. How odd! But Mason's friend Vincent, while he respects Rolando's suspicions, sends Mason and Rolando to talk to Byron, who seems more irritated than anything else, and makes it clear that he isn't responsible and just wants to be left alone.

Mason actually believes him, but Rolando doesn't. However, Mason finds that once again, Lou, his Ifrit, is attracting attention. Lots of people are showing an interest in Lou. Josephine for one, and she and Mason talk about where Ifrits come from and why only some of them have Ifrits. Mason theorizes that Ifrits are attracted to practitioners with true creativity in magic, because there are powerful magicians who don't have Ifrits.

Josephine is intrigued by this possibility, but points out that fewer and fewer Ifrits are appearing these days. She and Mason go out on a date and are very interested in her, but Rolando appears at the end, spoiling it, and very clearly warns Mason off from any interest in his sister. Mason finds it strange that Rolando would do such a thing, but he continues to investigate, this time without Rolando, and has another talk with Byron after getting caught in a trap at the man's house meant for Rolando.

But he still feels that Byron had nothing to do with the deaths of the practitioners, and when Byron lets him go, he tells Victor exactly that. When he checks out the place that the latest victim died, he meets a homeless man who has becomes less of a mage and more like an Ifrit. He doesn't do magic, he *is* magic, rather like a fae. And yet, this man is also interested in having an Ifrit and expresses interest in Lou. He wants Mason to help him and some others like him try to get an Ifrit. Mason is willing, because the man helps him with a situation.

Rolando is acting strangely, and Josephine seems drawn and strange. Mason suspects that Rolando is doing something to Josephine. But can he track down the true villain in the deaths and bring them to justice when so many of the people involved are stronger in magic than him? Can he save Josephine and protect her from what Rolando is doing to her, and find out the truth about what is between them? Or will he once again be unlucky in love with a fellow practitioner?

I had really been looking forward to reading this new book, and I was glad to see it come out. But once again, the focus seemed to be more on Lou the Ifrit than on Mason. Or perhaps I should say that both of them had their own subplots in the book. Mason searches for the practitioner who is killing and trying to take over fellow magicians, Lou's origins and the possibility of those without Ifrits could have one if they manipulate magic in a certain way is also heavily tied into the plot, although how it fits in with Mason's plot is unclear at first.

And while I found the whole Ifrits thing intriguing in the first book, in this book I hoped I'd learn more about Mason, and another Ifrit-heavy plot felt too much like treading over the same ground as in the first book, only for the second time. Yes, Ifrits are intriguing, but honestly, I'd rather read more about Mason than another book about Lou and his fellow Ifrits. It felt too samey-samey, even if more interesting stuff about Ifrits was revealed.

I'm hoping that the third book focuses less on Ifrits and more on Mason. While Lou might be an interesting subject, let's not throw the focus of the book on him again for a third time right away. I hope it's possible to add books to the series without them being Ifrit-centric. I'm interested in reading about Mason first, his partnership with Lou and about Lou as an Ifrit a distant third. I still recommend this book and this series, but honestly, Mr. Leavitt, enough about Lou for now. More about the world and its practitioners, please?