9 Things about Mercy Thompson

Mercy turns into a coyote.
How cool is that? While there are werewolves and fae in this world, the walkers are relatively rare. (They are not the skin-walkers of Native American legend—evil witches who wear the skins of animals—but an animal shifter of sorts.) The reason behind this is grounded in history: fae and werewolves are Old World creatures, transported to the New World via the same immigration patterns as us humans. As a threat to the vampires, the walkers—native people who could shape-change into coyotes or ravens or thunderbirds—were very nearly exterminated. Sounds familiar.
Mercy’s a mechanic.
Though she’s got a degree in history—which she occasionally brushes off to stand down people treating her like a stupid grease monkey—Mercy’s true love is cars. She runs a small mechanic shop she bought from Zee, a cranky old fae with an usual affinity for iron (usually anathema to fae). Her work is not just window dressing, and her constant worry about how to eke out a fairly meager living is often as big a concern when whatever supernatural disaster is taking up her time this month. I like when characters have real vocations. (I also like when people named Mercedes work primarily on Volkswagens. Narf.)
Mercy is trained in martial arts.
At the beginning of the series, Mercy’s practice of shisei kai kan—which her sensei describes as “reach out and break someone”—is just a hobby, a way to stay in shape so she can keep up with the physical demands of being a mechanic. (Engines aren’t light.) But when things heat up, she takes it more seriously, in addition to sparring practice with Adam the werewolf. Her strength and her fighting abilities are the product of real work, and I admire that.
She still gets her ass kicked, a lot.
Hear me out, seriously. Mercy is underpowered compared to many of the magical creatures that are part of her daily life. Other than the ability to turn into a 35 pound coyote, a good nose, and the ability to see ghosts, she is as human, and as breakable, as you or I. Like the Old Coyote of legend, she has to rely on her wits and a chaotic luck to see her through, but sometimes that’s just not enough. There are real stakes when Mercy goes toe-to-toe with a nightmarish volcano god, for example. She doesn’t have rapid healing powers (like the werewolves), and it means that much more when she charges off in someone’s defense.

Let’s all visit the Tri-Cities.
The “urban” in urban fantasy always refers to some city or town, like Sookie Stackhouse’s Bon Temps or Chess Putnam’s Downside. Mercy herself is located in the real world Tri-Cities of Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland in Washington state. While I like fictional places like Bon Temps just fine, I get an inordinate kick out of opening scenes like the one in Fire Touched, which finds Mercy and her motley crew battling a troll on the Cable Bridge. I think it’s neat when authors place events in locales they know well, imagining the roll and pitch of action over ground they have trod themselves. It’s that much more real. Like any fantasy novel worth its salt, all of the Mercy Thompson novels open with a map, and the mixed uses and spread between urban and rural makes the Tri-Cities a very cool setting.
…and hang out with some gross vampires.
Everyone has their preferences, and that is a-okay, but mine, when it comes to blood-suckers, is gross and evil. The vampires in Mercy’s world are all that, in addition to being pretty terrifying. Mercy herself is friends with one, a vamp named Stefan, after they bonded over refinishing his van to look like the Scooby gang’s Mystery Machine. Their relationship is still fraught, as he is beholden to the local seethe, a rogue’s gallery of freaks and weirdos. Vampire politics are deep and old, and every time Mercy ends up in the middle of one of their messes, like in Blood Bound, things get dicey.
…and some rwrrr werewolves.
It was Mercy’s father, who died before she was born, who passed on her ability to shift into a coyote. When her mother found a coyote pup in Mercy’s crib, she sent Mercy to be raised by a friend of the family, who also happened to be the werewolf pack leader for North America. Coyotes and wolves aren’t particularly friendly in the wild, and Mercy had an intense upbringing with creatures much, much gnarlier than herself. When we find her at the beginning of the series, Moon Called, she’s got a funny, fractious relationship with the local pack leader, Adam. The werewolves in Mercy’s world are rigid and hidebound in a lot of ways, and watching her shape them up with her coyote chaos is very satisfying.

…and various and mysterious fae.
Fae “came out” to the human world some years prior to the events of the first novel, agreeing to move together to reservations, to protect both humans and themselves. Lots of fae, for example, like to dine on children, which won’t go that well for either the children or the fae. That’s when Mercy’s old boss Zee sold her his shop, though he comes in from time to time to help out and play with the metal that is his gift. The fae Mercy meets in her travails run the gamut from relatively powerless and dumb, to canny, creepy who-knows-what-all.
And she’s got a magical walking stick for a pet:
At the beginning of Iron Kissed, Mercy runs across a fae object as she’s investigating some killings on the fae reservation. The walking stick begins following her around, magically appearing in her car or on her nightstand, much to the consternation of the Grey Lords who manage fae artefacts. The stick is this interesting detail, like many in the Mercy Thompson books, that gets woven into and out of the ongoing plot. You never know what might pop up again when you’re reading, which makes this just the finest series to sink your sharp, coyote teeth into.