Hang Wire is an urban fantasy novel with a half dozen characters, some immortal, some every-day people, who come together to face a threat of a magnitude that humanity has never known.

In between flash backs to the villain setting up his ghastly scheme, readers get to follow the trail of a killer in San Francisco who garrotes his victims with thick cable and then hangs them by their necks in a grisly display. 

“When the second surge threw him up to the surface, and the third pulled him down, he knew something was wrong. When he surfaced again he could hear it, a moaning, like a deep wind howling through a canyon a million miles away.” pg 10

It’s actually a rather complex plot between the flashbacks and the modern day with nearly constant back and forth skips in time, almost like waves in an ocean.

“You are the master of every situation.” pg 45

Which leads to my main complaint about this book. Similar to other urban fantasies I’ve had the privilege of reading in the past, it felt like the plot either needed to be simplified or fully fleshed out. By zipping over so much in so few pages, I felt like we only got part of the story.

“Of course it had happened before. Several times. San Francisco, like an unfortunate number of other cities across the United States, knew what it was like to have a serial killer in their midst.” pg 47

I guess the lesson I took from Hang Wire is that less is more when it comes to storytelling. And Hawaiian gods of death are incredibly cool.

Recommended for readers who don’t mind multiple flashbacks in their urban fantasy.

Thanks for reading!

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