Great Mystery with Plenty of Room for Sequels

Who knew that a book about a bounty-hunting witch running from her own bounty would have such a sweet soul?

On alternate Earth where half the human population has been wiped out from a vegetable-borne virus, all the creatures from the fairy tales, (ie, witches, vampires, pixies, fairies, "Weres," etc), dubbed "Inderlanders," have live a "seperate but equal" existance with humans, complete with their own police force, "Inderland Security." When Rachel, an down-on-her-luck bounty hunter quits the I.S. and takes one of the agency's best operatives with her, a bounty is put on her head by her boss. She has to fight off advances from her hormonally-challenged roommate, and THEN she discovers that one of the city's leading human citizens is growing and smuggling drugs. Things spiral out of control from there.

After a strong set up, Harrison takes time to develop her characters fully. The main plot of the book takes a backseat to several of the subplots involving secondary characters. And that's a GOOD thing. The book comes to a satisfying conclusion (not a cliffhanger), but there are enough mysteries and unanswered questions to fill the next several volumes.

This is a very strong early novel. Harrison really spends time letting the reader get to know the characters. Her style is descriptive, yet tight and well-paced. More importantly, this ostensively neo-goth story has a real heart behind the fangs and there's a sweetness to all the characters that surprised me but also entertained me. The tone is not nearly as dark as the cover would indicate. This is a good title for most anyone who wants a little adventure.

A Good Start

I would equate this novel with the first X Men film. It was good, but most of the story was spent on introducing characters and settings for future sequels instead of on plot. In general, the entire series will probably be quite good, but this book lacks quite a bit in the story line department. Most of this first novel is just the main character dodging all the assination attempts thrown her way. The author does a good job explaining the "Hollows" as well as their particular brand of magic, but it's a bit over-explained; hopefully in the next novel none of these exhausting descriptions will be necessary and the book can just flow and concentrate on more important matters. It's a good start -- but I hope there is much more to come.

I would consider this the poor man's Harry Dresden.

When A Kiss Is Just A Bite

Kim Harrison's debut novel about a young police witch who decides to strike out as an independent, comes as something of a pleasant surprise. Certainly, there has been no lack of tough magician/detective stories in the years since Laurell K Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and some of the urban fantasy crowd moved into the genre. Detective fantasy is a small niche at best, but the overall quality has been good, with only a few wobbles lately. But just when I thought the genre dead, along comes this effort, and the story shows much promise and only a few imperfections.

I'm not going to pretend that the book's premises are spectacularly original. Harrison's world is one where magic and the occult were always there, but until a bio-engineered virus wiped out half of the 'normal' folk, the occult world stayed carefully hidden. Now it is a world divided - in this case the normals live in Cincinnati proper and the 'spooks' live across the river in The Hollows. The Hollows is part of the Interland, where technology and medicine are suspect and you never know when you might get hit with a bad spell. Interland Security spends its time hunting down ill-behaved vampires, werewolves who shift out of season, and black magicians.

Rachel Morgan is a police runner down on her luck and not getting a lot of respect from her management. She's been relegated to second-rate assignments and only a down and out pixie will work at her side. Instructed to bring in a blackmailing leprechaun she gets offered three wishes and decides it's time to go independent. To her surprise Ivy, an unturned Vampire and expert runner, and Jenks, a pixie with a strong case of obnoxious attitude, decide to join her. This infuriates Rachel's ex-boss, and he takes out a contract on her. The red-headed witch will spend most of this story trying to stay alive long enough to buy off the contract.

Harrison turns out to be an effective writer who can out a plot together and build dialog. Plus she has the skill to build a believable urban fantasy world. The novel's biggest weakness is in character design. For all that Rachel is supposed to be a strong enough character to walk out on a dangerous organization, she is surprising squeamish, tends to panic, and it totally terrified that Ivy will bite or kiss her (or bit and kiss her). Ivy is an ex-blood addict who has a surprising inability to say no considering that she is a top operative. Jenks, however, is fairly normal for a pixie.

Since Harrison plays all these quirks for comic effect they work well enough for readability. It's hard to predict how well everything will hold together over a series. If the story lines start to get serious then Rachel will be in danger of becoming an Anita Blake clone. If Harrison can keep to lighter weight sarcastic humor without overworking the jokes then we may have a hit on our hands. In the meantime this volume is a pleasant way to spend a few days reading.