Dead Witch Walking

Dead Witch Walking (2004) Kim Harrison

This book had a lot to overcome. I don’t like the cover, I hate the title, and the first time I picked up this book I couldn’t get past the first ten pages. However, I kept hearing good things about it, and Michael said that he liked it, so I decided to give it another chance. I again started it, and I again found the main character so annoying that I almost put the book back down before finishing even the first chapter. But I didn’t have anything else to read, so I resigned myself to reading on, and was surprised that once I got past the first chapter, the story took off, and I quite enjoyed it.

Rachel is a Runner for Inderland Security–the bureau that deals with witches, vampires, pixies, etc. Unfortunately, Rachel is also fed up with her job. She’s gotten nothing but crap assignments, and everything seems to go wrong on the assignments she does get. So when the opportunity arises to leave–she takes it.

As I said, once I got past the first chapter, the story was very interesting. However, I had a hard time feeling sympathetic for a character that dressed like a hooker, and complained about her job. Once we moved on, the story was interesting, and the fact Rachel dressed like a tramp seemed more like a quirk than a defining characteristic.

The other thing the story had was a good deal of mystery, which is always a bonus as far as I am concerned. However, not all the mysteries are resolved. The story arc is completed, but you don’t get answers to all the questions that are asked. Which is okay, because it was done in a “life is like that” kind of way, rather than an “I’m leaving things unresolved so you’ll have to read the next book” kind of way.

The difference between the two is, I think, primarily due to the quality of the writing.

There were some things that bothered me. I found some of the transitions between chapters to be jarring. Time has passed, but it’s not immediately clear how much time has passed, and things like that bug me. But there were plenty of pluses to offset the things that irked me. Once we finally got down to explaining how the world is different from our own, I very much liked her world building and explanations of how things had turned out the way they had.

And as always, I’m fascinated what mythology was kept for the vampires and other supernatural creatures, and what was discarded. It amazes me that folklore can be interpreted in so many different ways, so that supernatural creatures from one author to another can be completely different from one another, yet wholly recognized as themselves.

So I recommend this book, and if you have trouble getting through the first chapter, push on and give it a couple more chapters and see if you’re hooked by then.
Rating: 7/10

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