Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

Pages 416
Publisher - Harper Collins
Challenges - Once Upon A Time, 100+, Library, New Author and A to Z Titles

Before I review this, I wanted to talk about the covers of this book. I ended up with the yellow cover of the book and I was so put off by the cover that I nearly

didn't pick it up; it was far to garish for my liking. My librarian recommended

this to me, so I ended up reading it and really enjoying it, but it show how first impressions mean so much to me and that you should never judge a book by its cover. However I do prefer the cover below and would have picked that one up straight away. I also had issues with the title as I kept imagining Dirty Harry to turn up in it, as it has that western feel to it. If you can't see this,then let me share a few of the other titles in the series - A Fistful of Charms; Every Witch Way But Dead and The Good, the Bad and the Undead. Anyone else feel that or is it just me?

Anyway, these are really minor irritations and obviously show off my shallowness, so lets get on to the actual book itself.

This is the story of Rachel Morgan a former runner of the Inderland Runner Services who apprehend criminals with magical and supernatural powers. Rachel is also a white witch and uses potions and charms to catch criminals. When she quits the Inderland, she takes one of their best runners with her, Ivy, a living vampire. This really upsets the head of Inderland and he puts a contract out on Rachel to have her killed, thus making her a DEAD WITCH WALKING. The only way that Rachel can save her own life is to catch a really big criminal in order to pay off the contract on her life. Rachel loses her home, because everyone knows that she is under a death threat and don't want to be associated with her, so she has to move in with Ivy in a deserted old church. Ivy spends most of the time trying to protect Rachel with one hand and trying to stop lusting after her blood with the other. They also have Jenks, a pixie and his rather large family living in their garden, fighting off killer fairies.
In her attempt to pay off the contract on her life, Rachel decides to go after Trent, a well known politician, who she believes is transporting bio drugs. She gets into all sorts of trouble on her pursuit.

This story is a fast paced thriller once it gets going. I thought it was a little slow to begin with and I wasn't sure whether I would continue reading it, but after the first few chapters the pace really picked up. I then began to feel exhausted for Rachel, with all the trouble she continually seemed to find herself in.

The relationship between Rachel and Ivy is an interesting one. It has a sisterly feel, bordering on lesbianism. Ivy has very strong feelings for Rachel, which she spends most of the book desperately trying to control.

The only thing I found a bit too strange in this book, was the worldwide fear of tomatoes. A nasty virus was created within tomatoes which nearly wiped out the human race,which then allowed all magical creatures to live amongst us, in order to keep the population levels at a healthy rate. I just couldn't believe this and found this a little bit far fetched. Especially a group of policeman shaking with fear over the sight of a tomato!

I found the book full of sharp wit, especially from Rachel. I kept finding myself giggling at the comments she made.

The characters are believable and full of oddities,which make them funny and interesting.
This book definitely had a Charmed versus Buffy kind of feel, which I would recommend to all fans of these programmes. I did enjoy it and will probably read the other books in the series as I am interested in how the relationship between Ivy and Rachel develops. There were definitely elements of Ivy's behaviour that were shown but not explained, so I presume more is revealed to show Ivy's true nature as the books progress. There are presently seven books in this series and this was Kim's debut, so it will be interesting to see how her writing style develops through the series of books. Throughout the book I felt like I got a real supernatural blast and enjoyed imagining what a world like that would be like.

I have attached Kim Harrison's website here.

These books were only released in England in the last couple of years, but they were released in 2004 in America.

Has anyone else read any books by Kim Harrison and if so what did you think of them?
Has anyone a review of this book that I could add here?