"Late Eclipses"

I just finished Seanan McGuire’s “Late Eclipses”, her 4th novel about San Francisco’s half-Fae private investigator October Daye. Things are not improving for her. Sure, Toby has gotten used to sharing her appartment with May, the Fetch who’s supposed to be present when she dies. When Toby is summoned to the Court of the Bay Area’s secret Queen of Mists though, she knows it can’t be good, what with the Queen hating her guts, and when the latter ‘promotes’ her to Countess of Goldengreen, she’s sure it’s a poison present. Literal poisoning then comes up when Toby’s friends, starting with Lily the Undine whose domain lies hidden in the Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden, become seriously sick, and suspicions point toward Toby, thanks to someone who had been responsible for her sleeping with the fish for fourteen years. Add to that questions about Toby’s origins, about which the Luidaeg - one of King Oberon’s Firstborn Children and a cranky friend of hers - won’t help with answers.

”Sorry,” said the Luidaeg, unapologetically.
I took a deep breath, and asked the one thing I really wanted to know: “Luidaeg, why did my mother lie to me?”
“Fuck, Toby, you just can’t ask the easy ones, can you?” The question had the bitter lilt of the rhetorical; she didn’t really expect an answer, and I didn’t give one. Sighing, the Luidaeg said, “She lied because she was trying to save you.”

Yes.
Recommended.
Very much so.

"The Court Jester"

What better followup to reading Seanan McGuire's "Late Eclipses" than to watch Danny Kaye's 1956 movie "The Court Jester"?

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebi9xE_iNSQ )