The South-central Pride has been tipped off about murdered toms, and this tests Faythe Sanders in her newly promoted role as an enforcer. Add that to investigating the recent spate of murdered strippers, and she has a lot on her plate. Then there are the spooky calls from her human ex…

It all doesn’t bode well for Faythe’s relationship with Marc Ramos, a needy, clingy, violent individual who won’t let Faythe defend herself. That may seem romantic to some, but seems way too controlling and whingey to me. Give a lass some freaking space, man! And a promise ring doesn’t count as freaking space…

Excuse the relationship, and this book is quite a cracker. Rachel Vincent has well and truly mastered the art of the end-of-chapter cliff-hanger…and likewise for the end of the novel. To discuss plot points would be major spoilers, so I’ll just say “wow” and leave it at that. But I rather enjoyed the extra light shed on Karen Sanders, Faythe’s mother and someone she doesn’t seem to respect. There’s also a new character I’m hoping (and expecting) will be featured more in the next instalment.

Faythe continues to make mistakes and grow up, but one question remains: will those broken doors ever be fixed?

Faythe is a Werecat, as you may have guessed, with the occasional bad attitude and an ability to attract accident and disaster. When women start going missing and tom cats end up mysteriously dead, she is called into action with her fellow enforcers to discover the culprit. What they discover, however, is far more sinister than Faythe is ready for and she begins to understand that it may all be her fault.

To me, the best part about Rogue was the depth that we got to see in Faythe. Vincent does a fantastic job developing Faythe’s character and her relationships. Speaking of relationships, don’t worry readers, Marc and Jace are still there. With a mouthwatering love triangle going on, who can resist not picking up Rogue. When you’ve got two tall dark and handsome men both vying for a girl’s attention, things are bound to get steamy! The only question is, what will happen? Surely Faythe can’t have both men. Will she settle into the relationship she has or will she ruin it in her own quest to find independence?

Another fantastic aspect of the book was that we finally got to learn a little bit more about Faythe’s relationship with her mother and who Karen Sanders truly is. Is she really the 1950s housewife she pretends to be or is there more lurking under the surface. Any woman that could give birth to and then raise Faythe Sanders has go to have some interesting personality points.

Overall, I can easily say I loved the book. The scenery is gorgeous, the characters were well developed and the pace was fantastic. Every calm scene, every agonizing scene and every fight scene brought out the appropriate emotions in me. I was actually surprised to catch my heart racing at times and my eyes beginning to water at other. I’m not usually an emotional person, but Vincent does such a fantastic job or laying out the story for us that it is impossible not to feel the emotions she writes with.

In ROGUE, Faythe and her on-again off-again boyfriend Marc are working to track down a rogue were who’s been killing strays in their territory. Soon the murders grow to include a series of seemingly unconnected exotic dancers, the only common denominator being that they each look just like Faythe. Straight dark hair, green eyes. Cuh-reepy. In the meantime, Faythe and Marc have enough on their hands handling each other, let alone the increasing pile of dead bodies. But when the trail leads back to someone from Faythe’s past she thought she’d left behind, all hell breaks loose and Faythe is left scrambling to keep her friends and prove her innocence.

I liked the pace of this one. It moved along at a good clip and the mystery was involving. I still like Faythe’s scruffy brothers and her parents’ relationship remains touching, if slightly eerie. I’m anxious (and a little bit afraid) to see where Vincent plans on taking Faythe next. She seems to be floundering quite spectacularly and I really sort of hope she (and Marc) will be able to pull their explosive emotions (and reactions) together long enough to be up front about their differences and find some middle ground. I think they both need to grow up, though Faythe’s immaturity is more frequently on display than Marc’s and, until something forces them to really see each other for who they are and accept what they see, things will continue to be rough for these two cats.

To its benefit, at least Going Rogue is not just another mighty Marvel mutant mash where the genetically gifted seem to pile up in panel after panel. Nor is it a super slugfest, and instead focuses on mystery and character. The addition of the blind mutant Gambit as Rogue’s longterm boyfriend with a problem helps complicate things, but not so much as to cause more than a page or two of suspense. It’s just that, given the possibilities, the resulting character study is mediocre and rather dull.

Rodi is slightly better known as a novelist than a comics writer. His novel, Whatever Happened to Princess Paragon?, showed enough of a familiarity with comics fans and history that I wasn’t surprised to eventually find his name on a comic. He does well enough in this medium, although there’s nothing about the story in Going Rogue that would impel me to search out Rodi’s comic work in the future. Richards’ artwork is a bit on the cartoony side, as it doesn’t have much detail, but the lines are strong and clean. The best artwork here are the six individual covers, reproduced here in splash pages, by Rodolfo Migliari.