Monday, August 3, 2020

Dead witch walking by Kim Harrison

In the 1960s a man made virus ravaged the Earth after hitching a ride on an innocuous looking tomato killing half the population and exposing the Inderlanders - the 'creatures' that man though were only dreams and nightmares - to the general population.  Decades later the Inderlanders live alongside humans, and an uneasy truce has been struck that sees Inderland Security (the I.S) protecting and policing the Inderlanders, while the Federal Inderland Bureau (FIB) protects the humans and hunts down illegal biolabs (as well as keeping an uneasy eye on the Inderlanders).  It's not a perfect world, but it seems to work, and it means witches like Rachel Morgan don't have to hide what they really are.

Employed as a Runner by the I.S she has one job, to bring in Inderlanders who have broken the rules.  It seems simple enough, but things keep going wrong and she can never seem to please her boss.  Deciding to cut her loses, Rachel makes the call to quit the I.S - which shouldn't be a problem due to her lack of popularity, but that's not as easy as it seems, as people who try and break their I.S Runner contracts have a tendency to end up dead.  Rachel has a plan to deal with that though, plans that are rapidly scuttled when Ivy, the best Runner in the office who also happens to be a living vampire, decides to quit too and start a partnership with Rachel - which puts Rachel squarely in the cross hairs of their former boss.

Starting a new career as an independent Runner is going to be hard enough without dodging death curses and hitmen for the foreseeable future.  Rachel's only hope is to bring in a big target that will help her pay off her I.S contract, and there is no bigger target than Trent Kalamack.  Everyone in the I.S knows that Kalamack is involved with dealing Brimstone, but no one can prove it, and anytime they get close he manages to skate free.  Determined to bring him down, Rachel hatches a plan that she is sure will work.  What she wasn't counting on was the complication of living with Ivy, who as a living vampire has all sorts of interesting buttons to push that will put pressure on their working and personal relationships.  There's nothing like the pressure of being in a life and death situation to bring out the best in someone, but Rachel is about to discover that the price of success might be more than she is prepared to pay.

Dead witch walking is the first book in The Hollows series, and it is a brilliant start to a thoroughly enjoyable series.  I started reading the series years ago and then got distracted and forgot about it until recently, when I decided to reread some series and see what new series some of my favourite authors had written.  I was hooked back into the series from the start and have already ordered the second and third books in the series so I can keep going and read my way up to the current book in the series.  One of the things I love most about the series is how 'real' the world of The Hollows is - Harrison has clearly spent time thinking about the mythology of her world, and she has built up a world and a group of characters that is totally believable and relateable.  

This is not a horror series, despite the presence of witches and vampires, it is best described as an urban fantasy - though it is fair to say it is at the darker end of the scale.  This is a fantastic series (no pun intended) and the best part about discovering it now is that you can read through the books in quick order without having to wait for them to be published like I did the first time I read them!

 If you like this book then try:
  • Omens by Kelley Armstrong
  • Summon the keeper by Tanya Huff
  • Eight million gods by Wen Spencer
  • Dark descendant by Jenna Black
  • Moon called by Patricia Briggs
  • Angel's blood by Nalini Singh
  • Cry wolf by Patricia Briggs
  • Spiders bite by Jennifer Estep
  • Alien taste by Wen Spencer
  • Blood price by Tanya Huff
  • Kitty and the midnight hour by Carrie Vaughn
  • Children of the night by Mercedes Lackey
  • Born to run by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
  • Knight of ghosts and shadows by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon

Reviewed by Brilla

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