Once upon a time, some years ago, there was a secret military research facility, where scientists performed highly illegal, unethical procedures upon various animals, and upon a human infant. Then there was an accident, and the facility burned down. Among the test subjects who escaped were a ferocious killer guard dog, a rat with the intelligence of a human and twice the cunning, and a strange girl possessing the genes and traits of a hawk. Together, they form an uneasy truce in a nearby ghost town, the dogs, rats, and girl learning to co-exist, yet always at odds. This seems to be the status quo, one that will remain. That is, until a teenage boy accidentally stumbles across the town, and gets caught up in things. Now he has to work with the girl, known only as Dusk, to avoid the killer dogs and an unstoppable army of rats whose leader is a military genius. Should they survive, they’ll have to deal with a curious military, and figure out what Dusk’s place in society, if any, is. She may be too much hawk and not enough girl to adapt.

Dusk is a strange, yet fairly gripping story, fast-paced and suspenseful. Gates does a great job of portraying the inhuman girl and the culture clash that develops when she’s discovered by a normal human after all her years of solitude. I was less caught by the human, Jay, who befriends her; he starts off as a jerk and his redemption comes sporadically throughout the course of the book, but never quite rings entirely true. This could easily have been a longer book, both for the price and for the story left to be told. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading Dusk, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the titular character in the future.