Review: Mel Todd's No Choice

So, what happens when you are a cop in the middle of a bank robbery -- you're held hostage, a child is about to die.

You turn into a giant cougar and kill them all, of course.

Officer McKenna Largo is having a very strange day.

And it's only going to go down hill from here.

And she has no choice in the matter.

No choice at all.

---

The story

McKenna Largo is an ordinary beat cop who just wants to do her job. The last thing she wants is to be part of a reality show with some idiot with a camera following her and her partner around all day. In the middle of a bank robbery she turns into a cougar. She wasn't a shape-shifter an hour earlier.

The problem is that she's not the only one. Millions of people around the world have shifted from human beings into furry predators. But in her case, there's video. She becomes the face of a movement.

Like Mel's other books, it leans heavily on character and world building to move the story along.

The characters

It's fun watching a normal, every day person be turned into a PR representative against their will. And when McKenna gets turned into "the face of shifters," she hates every last minute of it. And it's fun watching her put up with all of it.

Or, as Jim Butcher describes his writing, "Suffer characters! Suffer!"

The world

Mel Todd handles this about as well as the TV show Grimm did. It's our world with a new development as part of it. Much of the world building is done as snippets of news coverage as it explores the worldwide phenomenon.

Basically, imagine if Blue Bloods had the supernatural as part of the law enforcement routine.

It also does doing media relations as well as Carrie Vaugh's Kitty Norville series.

And it examines the full spectrum of cultural impacts of the supernatural twenty times better than the Anita Blake novels ever did.

The politics

This is largely pro-cop, but it would be difficult to be anything else, considering that our point of view character is a cop. It's "largely" pro-cop because there's at least one corrupt cop, and McKenna has critical thoughts about her higher-ups.

Aside from that, the politics seem to boil down to "politics are stupid."

Content warning

Nudity, but no one lingers on it, so it's barely noticeable.

Who is it for?

Anyone who enjoys good characters and fun world-building will love this. If you enjoyed Grimm, Blue Bloods, or Harry Dresden, you'll almost certainly enjoy this as well.

Why read it?

No Choice is a fun romp through a world that's been plunged head-first into the supernatural, and how it deals with it.