Lure of the Wicked

A futuristic Seattle devastated by witchcraft and run by a tyrannical Christian church is the setting for this fast-paced but muddled follow-up to June's Blood of the Wicked. Hotheaded witch hunter Naomi Ishikawa West reluctantly poses as a spoiled heiress at a lavish spa to stake out a man who murdered two church officials. She soon connects with Phinneas Clarke, the son of the hotel's owners, who secretly runs an "underground railroad" to help accused witches. As the romance between the two heats up and a killer closes in, Naomi is forced to reckon with her painful past and a love that may destroy both her job and her life. While Cooper's writing is snappy and her characters likable and dynamic, the supposedly postapocalyptic setting is vague, and the details of Naomi's Japanese heritage are uncomfortably stereotypical. (July)