Operation Luna
by Poul Anderson
Tor, 1999, ISBN 0-312-86706-9
A book review by Elisabeth Carey
It's been years since Steve Matuchek, werewolf, and Ginny Graylock Matuchek, licensed witch, rescued their daughter from Hell. Now they're living in the southwest, where Steve is an engineer with Project Selene, the big-budget NASA (that's National Astral Spellcraft Administration) project aimed at putting a celestonaut on the moon before the end of the decade, and Ginny does high-priced consulting--sometimes for Project Selene. On the side, they're both involved in Operation Luna, a low-budget private industry effort aiming at the same thing, but without the attendant publicity and overcomplication.
And then Project Selene's test launch is sabotaged, and the evidence, such as it is, seems to implicate Coyote, some Asian Beings about whom westerners know almost nothing, and Ginny's brother, Will Graylock. It's about this time that the Inquisition for Revenue Securement decides that it needs to audit the Matucheks. The Matucheks decide that they can't leave the investigation of these assorted problems in the hands of the FBI and their old buddy Bob Shining Knife, who has been assigned as the lead investigator; they need to take things into their own hands. And so they do, with help along the from a Zuni priest, various Native American gods and Beings, the Fair Folk living on the moon, a talking sword, and a bad-tempered Scandinavian dwarf. It perhaps doesn't quite have the intensity of Operation Chaos, but it's still a very enjoyable book with a fairly satisfying conclusion.
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