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** spoiler alert ** Sins & Shadows is the first book in the Shadows & Inquires series featuring Sylvie Lightner, nicknamed Shadows, who is a paranormal private investigator and basically a killer. When we first meet Sylvie, she has had enough and is closing up her shop, Shadows Inquiries, for good. After watching Rafael Suarez, a friend and assistant, get murdered by a group of Satanist in front of her, and the continued fighting with the Magicus Mundi without actually getting anywhere, she fires her friend Alex (for her own safety) and decides it’s time for her to walk away. If only it were that simple.

Sylvia has lived by two rules: Innocents don’t come between Sylvie and trouble and She doesn’t kill people cops can handle. Sylvie is an unlicensed private, unsupervised investigator who the ISI � Internal Surveillance & Intelligence Agency - has been keeping an eye on. They believe she is an amateur with a gun, and a vigilante at best who has killed a hellhound, sorcerers, succubi, and an angel with buckshot wings.

Along comes Kevin Dunne, a former police officer, who is now a god of Justice. (Yes, this is writers� choice to change the actual god from Themis to Kevin). Kevin asks Sylvie to find his lover Brandon Wolf who has gone missing. Kevin arrives with three Furies who formerly worked for Hera. Alekta, Magdala, and Erinya. Erinya was probably the most likable sub-character in the book, and then Alex who refuses to be terminated while Sylvie is away on her investigation.

Sylvie agrees to go to Chicago and investigate Bran's disappearance with the understanding that Kevin will take care of the Satanist that have been such a nuisance to her, Alexandra Figueroa-Smith (Alex), and her friends and family. He agrees and turns one of the more nasty females into a flower.

Sylvie is not the warm, touchy feely kind of character that you expect from UF stories. She is angry; she has a mean spirited attitude towards everyone. She has a deep seeded darkness within her soul that lashes out at her enemies, and also seems to steer her into constant trouble. She is also trigger happy, choosing to kill first, and ask questions later. People around Sylvie end up hurt, or dead. She ends up being responsible for another friend losing her witch powers most likely forever and another nearly dies because they couldn't reach Sylvie who is under a death curse. On top of all this, she discovers she may be the daughter of Lilith and Cain which may explain her darkness within. In the end she ends up making enemies of the Angels of God, Kevin and a Sphinx (Anne D) who is the mother of Michael Demalion an ISI investigator and a person Sylvie actually finds herself attracted to.

This book mixes the paranormal, Greek Mythology with the inclusion of Zeus and Hera to the storyline, as well as Judeo-Christian bible teachings with the inclusiion of Lilith as the main villian. My major complaint about this book is that it felt like the second book in a series, instead of the first. Not enough was explained about the ISI and Magicus Mundi, or why she decided to fight them. Maybe we can get the writer to do a prequel someday. It also went on, and on, and on, and at one point I actually screamed "ARE WE FREAKING THERE YET?"