It’s been a hot minute since I read the previous novel in the series, but S.M. Reine is good about bringing up what happened to characters as part of their history, not an info dump. In this story, the U.S. government is proposing a new bill that would regulate “preternaturals,” that is, Americans who are also witches, werewolves, etc. Reine doesn’t seem shy about the comparison to Japanese internment camps from our shameful American history.
Bitter Thirst was published in 2017, meaning Trump was president and screaming about “illegals” and “building the wall.” Reine, whom last I knew shared a mailing address in Reno, NV on her website, likely knows the political chaos intimately because she lives in a state that had almost 900,000 Hispanic and Latino people during the 2020 census.
Even better than reading an urban fantasy novel that addresses real concerns is how our main character, Cèsar Hawke, doesn’t know how he feels about the new bill. It sounds like a good idea to him to put some controls on the populations he works with, because they can cause a lot of chaos. But everyone Cèsar cares about is against it. So, why can’t he just make up his mind? Bias confirmation makes Cèsar think that laws will prevent crime if someone exists in a certain category and is regulated.
Mostly, he’s not thoughtful (he acknowledges he hasn’t read the 500-page bill) and totally a coward. As the novel progresses, Cèsar struggles with delineating the ones he cares about into simply “good” and “bad” groups, leaving readers in an uncomfortable place in which we have to question a lot of folks and their intentions. I should have known, though; Reine did this to me a few series ago!
Grab the Lapels 
I love when an author can introduce old details from previous books in a thoughtful way – its such a blessing to the reader!
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FOR SURE. I’m getting further into my FBI books, and I feel like she reintroduces unnecessary parts in a hammy way and then doesn’t remind me of stuff I forgot.
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Loved the context you provided for this Melanie, and I like “Even better than reading an urban fantasy novel that addresses real concerns is how our main character, Cèsar Hawke, doesn’t know how he feels about the new bill.” As an “on the one hand, then again on the other” kind of person, I think I could relate to César. I do have a fundamental moral guide for my thinking, which has to do with treating human beings with compassion and decency, but when it comes to migration, my the issue is complicated. The trouble is that while there are some easy good and bad decisions there’s an awful lot that is grey where there are no easy right or wrong answers.
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I feel the same about the U.S. We’re not taking care of people who live here now, so how can we shelter people from other nations? Of course, this suggests that all immigrants are in need of shelter when they may be moving here for any number of reasons. Some people come highly skilled in a profession. Also, studies have shown that homelessness is related to things like addition, mental health, lack of access to care, etc. and not just someone down on their lucky. Therefore, solving homelessness and inviting in immigrants are likely two separate issues, though we entangle them because we see problems everywhere right now and don’t want more.
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Complicated eh? People do conflate things, or add 2 and 2 to make 5 sometimes, though, don’t they. Over here, we have services that would not survive without the migrant population. A good example is aged care which is staffed heavily by people from other countries. Agriculture and hospitality are others. (It’s not hard to see the industries that would flounder without migrants.) These people work in jobs we need and pay taxes which help those in need. This is a bit simplistic but it’s a truth as well. Of course, Australia has to work out how many people we can support but I believe that managed well, and with big hearts, it’s a lot more than we think.
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I was looking at a Reddit thread recently in which people were claiming Australians are extremely racist, and I was baffled because the only Australians I know are you book bloggers and Steve Irwin’s kids.
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I think it depends on the circles you are in. I have known racist people, but the people I spend time with, the people I worked with, are not racist. We pride ourselves on being a successful multicultural society, but there are definitely pockets where racism is rife, particularly with the recent rise in populist politics. I think we are still struggling with unconscious racism and institutional racism – but in my experience there’s a huge amount of goodwill and desire to treat everyone fairly and equally.
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For a long time I have pictured Australia as a great multicultural nation because people from all of the surrounding countries have immigrated there. In the threads that I was reading, he was talking about how some Australians are just really direct, and that’s part of the culture, so if they’re racist, they seem really racist.
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I’m not sure I can respond to that. There is racism here but, for example, there was overall outrage over some concerted racist behaviour during our ANZAC Day (like you Memorial Day) ceremonies last weekend. Also, in recent months some strong hate speech legislation has been enacted or is being enacted. I guess what I’m saying is that the Australian culture does not like racism and responds strongly to racist behaviour but it’s part of human nature so it will never be stamped out. And it can rise and fall with changes in the political environment. The current rise in populist politics, and the current wars in the Middle East, give some people the feeling that they can express hateful attitudes.
I wouldn’t give great credence to discussions on Reddit unless I knew who the participants were. What they say might be true but based on some specific experiences and generalised without true evidence?
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