One Foot in the Grave

I picked up this one the day after I finished Halfway to the Grave, mostly because I could not leave Cat and Bones where book one left them behind. My friend who pushed the first book on me said the second is where the series figures out what it wants to be, less origin story and more working partnership with a body count. She was right. The copy I read was the 2008 Avon paperback, 384 pages, listed as Night Huntress 2. It starts a few years after Cat walked away from Bones, and it spends almost all of its time asking whether two people who are good at killing can be good at staying together.

Cat Crawfield is twenty-six now, or close to it, and she goes by Special Agent Cat Crawfield. She works for Don, the same secret Homeland Security handler from the first book, leading a small team that hunts rogue vampires and ghouls. Tate is still there, still brave and still carrying feelings for Cat that she does not return. Cooper is steady, the one who treats Cat like a soldier instead of a symbol. Juan and Dave round out the team. They run night ops with silver ammo and medical support, and Cat is very good at the job. She is also tired. She sleeps badly. She keeps Bones out of her head by working.

Four Years After Bones

The opening missions show how much Cat learned from Bones and how much she lost by leaving him behind. She moves better. She reads a room for vampire pressure, that heavy feeling in the air that means someone old is near. She can shield her mind, she can feed to heal without panicking, she knows vampire law about territory and masters and challenges. She teaches her team those rules. What she cannot teach them is how to sense a trap laid by someone who knows her personally.

Someone starts killing with Cat in mind. Women who look a little like her turn up dead. Vampires connected to old cases turn up dead in ways that point back at her methods. Then attempts come closer, a sniper, a staged accident, a tip that sends her team into an empty building that should have been full. Don calls it a bounty problem. On the undead grapevine there is a price on Cat, wanted dead or half alive, which is a cruel joke about her half vampire blood. Half breeds are rare. Most vampire and human pregnancies do not survive. Cat is a curiosity and an insult depending on who you ask, and now she is a target with a payout.

I liked this setup more than another gang takedown because it makes Cat the case instead of the hunter. She hates it. Tate wants to lock her down in the compound. Don wants to use her as bait, again. Cooper is the only one who says plainly that bait works only if the team tells the bait the full plan.

The criticism starts early too. Frost recaps book one a lot in the first fifty pages. If you read the books back to back, you will skim. I did. Cat also repeats her reason for leaving Bones several times. I understood it the first time. It moves the moment Bones walks back in.

Bones Walks Back In

Bones has not been idle. He is still a bounty hunter for vampire masters, still connected, still feared, still amused by everything Cat does to pretend she does not need him badly. He finds her during a failed hit, kills the hitters with insulting ease, and then looks at her team like they are children playing with sharp objects. The reunion is awkward and hot and angry all at once. Cat tries to stay professional. She fails within about ten pages, which is honest if not exactly disciplined plotting.

What I appreciated is that Frost does not pretend the four year gap did not hurt. Bones is angry that Cat left without asking him. Cat is angry that Bones let her go instead of fighting her on it. They both have pride. They both have scars that are not from fights. Tate makes it worse by posturing, which Bones answers with calm mockery that only a two hundred year old vampire can pull off without sounding stupid. Juan tries to lighten things with jokes. Dave watches. Don watches most of all, because Bones on base is a security nightmare and also the best chance Don has of keeping Cat alive. I liked that Don admits this out loud. He hates needing a vampire to protect his best hunter, and he hates more that Cat lights up the first time in years when Bones walks into the room.

They strike a deal. Bones will stay close as Cat's protection and partner. Don gets limited help on vampire politics. Cat keeps her command while admitting she needs help. The real version is Bones moving into her space, relearning her tells, calling out when she lies about being fine. I found those small scenes better than the big fights. He notices she skips meals after bad ops. She notices he checks exits even in safe rooms. This is an adult series. If explicit romance bothers you, this book will bother you more than the first.

A fair warning about power imbalance. Bones is older, stronger, better connected. Frost tries to balance it by giving Cat authority on ops and by having Bones defer to her calls in the field. Sometimes it works. Sometimes Bones just takes over, and the book frames it as protectiveness. I did not always buy that.

Married, Sort Of, For Work

To draw out whoever placed the bounty, Cat and Bones go undercover as a married vampire couple. It is a classic Frost move, put the estranged lovers in a cover that forces closeness, and it works because Cat is terrible at playing relaxed. She overacts at parties. Bones underacts and lets his reputation do the work. They attend clubs and private houses where masters show off humans and younger vampires, where ghoul guards stand by the doors with green eyes and too wide jaws, where power feels like pressure behind the ears. Cat has to smile and sip blood laced wine and pretend she is new to this life while memorizing faces and exits. One long evening in a crowded house stood out to me, Cat counting guards while Bones keeps a hand at her back, both of them lying smoothly to a master who keeps testing whether their marriage is real. The test is invasive and petty, and Cat answers it with a flash of temper that almost blows the cover and also convinces the room she belongs to Bones.

These chapters are fun and also where the book shows its worldbuilding. Vampire society runs on territory, lineage, and strength. A master controls a city or region. Older vampires can mesmerize and read unshielded minds. Ghouls eat flesh, distrust vampires, and hire out as muscle. Bones navigates it with ease after centuries in it. Cat navigates it with nerves because she grew up being told she was proof of evil.

Tate hates the cover. He has to watch Cat pretend to belong to Bones while caring for her himself deeply. He drinks too much on one op and nearly blows it. Cooper tells Cat that jealous men get people killed. Cat knows Tate is a liability here and keeps him on the team anyway because she is loyal to a fault.

My criticism for this middle stretch is mission blur. Several club visits and chases run together, and minor vampire names blurred for me badly. Frost cares more about Cat and Bones and Tate than the weekly villains. I forgave it because the three leads stayed sharp, but tight mystery readers may get impatient.

The Team Under Strain

Back at base, Don pushes Cat to take bigger risks because every day the bounty lives, more hunters come. He withholds intel, as in book one, because he thinks his people work better without full context. Cat pushes back harder now. She demands real extraction plans and a promise that Bones will not be detained after. Don agrees to some of it and lies about the rest, and you can feel the old handler and asset pattern trying to return.

Juan and Dave get good moments here. Juan jokes to keep the team from cracking, even in the infirmary after bad nights. Dave checks on Cat after nightmares without making it a thing, just coffee and a quiet report. Tate slides. He volunteers to prove himself against Bones and makes a call that puts Dave in danger. Cat covers for him once, then calls him on it, and their friendship cools in a way that felt real.

Justina, Cat's mother, appears in a way that hurt to read. She is still traumatized and unable to fully accept what Cat is. Their calls are short and loaded, full of old fear. Frost does not resolve this neatly. She lets a mother love her daughter badly while Cat sets harder boundaries.

Blood, Bounty, and Her Father's Shadow

The turn that lifts the book involves Cat's bloodline. Her father Max is old, strong, connected, and interested. In book one we learned he sees Cat as a tool. In book two we feel his reach. Vampires who should not know her movements know them. Money moves through ghoul intermediaries. The bounty starts to look like a managed removal.

Frost keeps Max mostly off stage. He works through agents and messages, which makes him colder. When Cat learns more about what happened to Justina and why she survived when most half vampire pregnancies do not, it lands because we watched Cat hate an idea and now face a colder man. He offers her a place if she cuts Bones and kneels. She refuses.

The action climax is layered. Cat agrees to a meeting that is clearly a trap to force the bounty makers into the open. Bones sets cover with Tate, Cooper, Juan and Dave, plus allies who owe him. Ghoul muscle switches when pay looks shaky. There are silver nets, crashed cars, a house turned kill box, and mind control Cat must shield against while bleeding. She feeds during the fight to stay standing, which Frost writes as practical rather than erotic, a choice I liked. Tate takes a bad wound protecting her as his commander, which finally moves him from rival lover to bruised family. Cooper disobeys Don quietly to slip Cat extra ammo, a small betrayal that tells you where the team's heart lies.

What Lands and What Drags

The last fifty pages are about consequences. Don tries threats, then bargaining, then thin respect. Cat does not quit, she renegotiates. She will keep hunting rogues because she believes in the work, but on terms that protect her team and her partner. Bones stays openly instead of returning to shadows, which paints a larger target on both of them and ends Cat's double life. Tate survives with pain and respect instead of hunger. Justina must live with a daughter who no longer accepts shame as love. Cat stops punishing herself for being born and chooses partner over penance, at least for now.

I closed the Avon paperback late at night feeling satisfied in the way you feel after a long shift with people you like. Is it polished? Not always. The early recap drags, the middle missions blur, Cat forgives Bones and Don too quickly when the plot needs them together, and Tate's jealousy loops. The explicit content is frequent, the violence is gory, the language is crude, Juan's jokes included. None of that bothered me once I accepted the contract. What kept me was the core. Two damaged, competent people learning to trust each other while everyone powerful around them tries to use them. The bounty plot gives them a reason to fight side by side again. The marriage cover forces them to admit they never stopped acting married in the ways that count. The father shadow gives Cat a reason to stop hating herself and start defending herself, and that change carries into the next book.

If you liked book one for the banter and the bar fights, book two gives you larger fights and sharper banter and a team that feels lived in. If book one tested you on the kidnapping to romance turn, book two is steadier, two adults choosing each other after time apart, with clearer consent. I started book three the next morning, tired and glad I stayed.

A Note on Continuity

This is firmly book two. You could follow the bounty plot without book one, but you would miss why Cat flinches when Bones is kind and why Max matters. Order is Halfway to the Grave then this book, then At Grave's End. Rules stay consistent, silver and decapitation kill, sun and crosses do not. What changes is Cat. In book one she hunted to atone. In book two she hunts to protect, and that shift holds.