The World's Okayest Detective.
Maggie Hunt is a superhero.
Okay, so technically she's a "costumed vigilante," both for legal reasons and because she has no superpowers to speak of—just grit, anger issues, smart friends, and a big stick.
Set in Marbrose City—an amalgam of Prohibition-era New York and Chicago, by way of the 21st century—Fear Her Wrath follows Maggie’s crusade against crime as Night-Wrath, a DIY teenage Batman who doesn’t quite know what she’s doing. Opposing her are the Montagnese crime family, a corrupt city council, a rotten police force, and a slew of “freaks” (costumed criminals) who work for the city’s criminal gangs. Luckily, she’s not going at it alone. Her most important allies and agents include...
- Elinor “Ellie G” Gan, a hacker, artist, and general troublemaker who serves as Maggie's comms person and social media manager.
- Simon Mallory, a genius inventor with a secret who becomes her armorer.
- Benedict Vang, a self-described “handsome jerk” who trains Maggie in self-defense.
- Sergeant Sarah Corrigan, who serves as her police contact within the heinously corrupt Marbrose police force.
Books 1-4 in the series roughly cover Maggie’s first year as Night-Wrath. Cultural and technological anachronisms abound. So does drama.
This book series provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Psychosis for Maggie.
- Action Girl: Night-Wrath, when she isn’t in over her head.
- Alternate Identity Amnesia: Simon Mallory doesn’t remember anything that happens while Psychosis is in control. Later, he learns to recognize the signs, and sometimes fight back.
- Amazon Chaser: Benedict Vang, who sheepishly confesses to finding Maggie's muscular biceps "really hot."
- Anachronistic Orphanage: Several characters (among them Emery Rubinstein, Josie Connelly, and Declan Lovejoy) were raised in an orphanage run by Catholic nuns. Hardly the only deliberate anachronism in the story.
- Art Deco: A Marbrose City signature. Many locations of significance to the story—the Dreyfuss Hotel, 220 Hayes Avenue, Zenobia Towers—are described as Art Deco in style. Night-Wrath’s costume is also Art Deco-inspired.
- Ascended Fanboy: Hazel McFarren and Fatima Ibrahim. Maggie chose them as agents because they spent so much time defending her on social media. Hazel even writes Nightwrath fanfiction, which Maggie's friends find
extremely amusing. - Bad Guy Bar: The Midnight Rider is a hangout for mobsters and freaks. Its proprietor, Fritz Marlene, is a semi-retired costumed criminal called the Archdyke.
- Batman Gambit: Maggie uses one to figure out where Icemane is hiding.
- Batter Up!: Tourniquet’s signature weapon is a Louisville Slugger studded with nails.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Maggie Hunt and Benedict Vang. It doesn’t help that they’re sparring on a regular basis.
- Berserk Button: Don’t bring up Maggie’s mom.
- Or make violent threats against her friends.
- Being one-quarter Jewish, Maggie is not super fond of Nazis. Seeing one of Baron Ghoul's mooks with a Swastika tattoo really sets her off.
- Break the Cutie: Ellie G suffers an emotional breakdown after having to watch three of Deadstream’s torture ASMRs, including one where Ben nearly dies. She temporarily quits as Night-Wrath’s comms person as a result.
- Butt-Monkey: Albert Rosinski. This doesn’t change even when he becomes the most powerful crime boss in the Fen.
- The Commissioner Gordon: Sarah Corrigan. Repeatedly lampshaded by the other characters, who find it even funnier when she starts dating Maggie’s dad.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Roland Galt wears black leather gloves to conceal the fact that he has the same fingerprints as his father and grandfather.
- Crapsack World: Marbrose City, which is run by an alliance between city hall, a corrupt police force, and the mafia. And that’s only scratching the surface.
- The Creon: Dalton Reaves is perfectly content to be Frankie's right-hand man, and has no aspirations to the kind of responsibility that comes with running a crew or being a caporegime. He eventually becomes this to Don Montagnese as well.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Maggie's second run-in with Icemane, where she utterly destroys him.
- Maggie's fight with Tourniquet, where she finds out the hard way that her foe has Super-Strength.
- Dating Catwoman: Maggie’s relationship with Gabriel Langston, aka the Whippowil.
- Diesel Punk: Technically, Decopunk.
- Extranormal Prison: Rothko Supermax was built to house Marbrose City's growing population of costumed criminals. While most of them don't have superpowers, the warden is confident that it can hold those that do (White Worm, Botanist, Tourniquet).
- Fan Disservice: Baron Ghoul, a corpulent cannibal crime boss, wears nothing but an open bathrobe both times he meets Nightwrath. Maggie remarks that he looks like a cross between Peter Lorre and Jabba the Hutt.
- Fate Worse than Death: Eugene Rothko has modified himself beyond recognition in an attempt to extend his life, to the point where he no longer resembles a human being and the only word he remembers is his sister's name.
- Female Gaze: Maggie tends to get slightly distracted when talking about Benedict Vang.
- Fountain of Youth: Eugene Rothko's immortality machine, which restores the user to the appearance and vigor of a thirty-year-old. It's powered by human blood, and requires you to trade two lives for your own. It also has unfortunate side effects when not used as intended.
- Gang of Hats:
- Glassface’s men wear translucent glass masks.
- Psychosis sometimes has his mooks wear doll masks.
- The Triptych Gang wear themed masks (horns, a crown of thorns, and a halo) representing hell, purgatory, and heaven.
- The members of the different mafia regimes within the Montagnese family have matching wrist tattoos.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Emery Rubinstein, who was raised by nuns, relies on old-fashioned minced oaths to express her displeasure.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: It takes until the third book before the Marbrose City press stops relentlessly badmouthing Nightwrath. Even then, they still turn on her on a dime.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Lucian Montagnese is frequently referenced as he's the series's Big Bad, but doesn't appear in person until the end of the second book.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Baron Ghoul is rumored to dine on human flesh. The White Worm may indulge as well.
- Immortality Seeker: Eugene Rothko, who develops an intense fear of death after his older sister is run over by a drunk driver. He builds a blood-powered Fountain of Youth but can't bring himself to use it, so turns to radical self-modification to extend his life instead.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Nightwrath’s preferred way of getting information from low level mooks (and Albert Rosinski).
- Crosses the line into Cold-Blooded Torture when she uses it on Simon in an attempt to draw out Psychosis.
- Knight in Sour Armor:
- Sarah Corrigan accepts that her career is at a dead end and she's probably not going to make a huge difference in the city, but sticks with the SVU because someone has to. This changes when she meets Nightwrath, and starts to see things getting better in Marbrose City.
- Vipsania Montagnese's personal motto is "Trust God and expect the worst." It's no coincidence that she took her religious name from Edith Stein, who was martyred by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
- Like Is, Like, a Comma: This is Elinor Gan's trademark Verbal Tic.
- The Mafia: The Montagnese Family are the main antagonists of the first few books. They play by somewhat different rules than the Real Life mafia, allowing half-Italians into high-ranking positions, marking membership with a regime tattoo, and relying on a blood-powered rejuvenation machine to keep the politicians in line.
- Male Might, Female Finesse: Inverted with Nightwrath and the Whippowil.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Ellis Oluwole has a doctorate in criminal psychology. He mainly uses it to manipulate criminals for his own ends.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Psychosis is convinced that the pleasure that Maggie takes in inflicting pain (and her tendency to turn her anger on those she loves) means they’re cut from the same cloth—and destined for each other.
- Nun Too Holy: Vipsania Montagnese seems pretty worldly for a nun. note She sneaks out of the convent, aids Nightwrath (who is a wanted criminal) whenever she can, wears skating shoes under her habit, and has to be reminded that she's a moral authority of sorts and should probably be holding other people (like her cousin) to Catholic teaching. At the same time, she's compassionate, recklessly selfless, and breaks the Church's rules only when some higher principle is at stake. The only reason she gets into so much trouble is that her faith is genuine, and she takes it really seriously.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Maggie is utterly grossed out when Sarah Corrigan starts dating her dad. It gets worse when situational evidence that they're sleeping together starts to pile up.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Psychosis's signature weapon is the the bloody table knife he used to murder Boss Lynam. It's a reminder at least three people that Maggie failed to save from her archenemy.
- The Queenpin: Dama Rosinska, who took over the Vistula Outfit in book 3. She originally ran the gang with her late husband and later became an advisor to her son. She's the only member of the family the other mobsters are really afraid of.
- Shout-Out:
- During the team's first visit to the Night Chapel, Ellie performs a parody of the opening to The Shadow on the church's broken organ.
- Maggie's meetings with Don Montagnese usually involve them trading snarky references to The Godfather.
Lucian Montagnese: I'm not interested in spilling any more blood if I can help it. Blood is—.
Nightwrath: A big expense, I know, I've seen The Godfather. Is this the part where I kiss your ring? - Teen Genius. Quite a few. Ellie G is a good enough hacker to be a threat to national security, Simon Mallory and Emery Rubinstein are both brilliant inventors, and Benedict Vang is a martial arts prodigy.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Played with. Maggie’s rule against unnecessary killing leads to the false belief in the underworld that she has a Batman-esque “no-killing rule”—which she has to constantly correct.Michael Anselmo: You don’t kill!
Nightwrath: Tell that to Gerard Rosinski. - Undressing the Unconscious: Ben does this to Maggie in the first book, but only so his parents and sister won’t notice the unconscious girl on their sofa is dressed like a superhero.
- Working with the Ex: Maggie has to team up with the Whippowil to take down Baron Ghoul. She treats him with prickly contempt, but feels a twinge of jealously when he implies that he has a romantic history with one of the freaks they're fighting. It's made even more awkward by Gabriel's younger sister trying to get them back together.