Award-winning author Caitlin R. Kiernan writes as Kathleen Tierney in the next book in her Quinn series, “Red Delicious.”

Quinn (do NOT use her first name Siobhan) a former or maybe not so former junkie who has been postscripted into a war against the forces of darkness by her supposed mentor, Mean Mr. B. In her last battle, she was attacked by both a vampire and a werewolf, becoming a strange hybrid of both. It has definitely not improved Quinn’s mood. She continues to rebel against Mr. B, even when he comes to her with a new “job” – locate a powerful necromancer’s missing daughter.

Quinn doesn’t want to mess around in the Maidstone’s territory, even less so when she finds out the last person who went looking for Amity Maidstone ended up dead. She soon learns that two of the Maidstone daughters are in a race to find a powerful magic artifact from a parallel universe (yes really) and not only is a succubus from this world interested, but one from the same parallel world the item came from is still tracking it down. The last thing Quinn wants to do is be caught in the middle of all of that, but the forces that be seem to do be doing just that – dragging her into a web she really doesn’t want to be in and just may get her killed. Again.

This series is a dark and twisted “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” – in which the main character is chosen to fight the otherworldy creatures of the night. Except this time she’s an addict, very sarcastic and has both the forces of good and bad hunting her down. Her mentor is a dangerous one, who seems like he picks people on the fringes of society just so no one will miss them if something should happen to them.

This is dark and gritty paranormal noir with a sharp razor’s edge. Readers tired of brooding vampire heroes will get a kick out of this “grown-up” series.