Author: Kim Harrison
Publisher: HarperTouch (April 1, 2004)
Genre: SciFi/Fantasy (Horror)
Amazon
Goodreads
Creatures of the night gather in the Hollows of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party, and to feed. Vampires rule. Bounty hunter and witch, Rachel Morgan keeps that world civilized. With serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead, or undead.
*****************
For those of you that love the Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, this book is right up your alley. I discovered this book by accident and I was not disappointed. I was on my kindle looking for a new series and this book presented itself. I read the preview of the first chapter and I was hooked.
Kim Harrison has invented a supernatural world set in an alternative Cincinnati. Her world splits from our world in the 1950’s after the discovery of DNA leads to humans experimenting with genetic engineering to the exclusion of everything else. In her world humans nearly wiped themselves out of existence after developing a genetically engineered virus that got out of control and spread through tomatoes (okay so that is a little odd but otherwise the story works well.) The only people not affected by the virus were the non humans (weres, vampires, witches and warlocks) who kept civilization running while the virus ran its course and then declared their existence to the humans that were left. Since that time humans and non humans, called Inderlanders, have lived in a wary truce with each other.
The Inderland Security bureau(ISB) was set up by Inderlanders to police the activities of other Inderlanders. This is where Rachel, the main character of the story works, at the start of the book.
The narrative is told in first person by Rachel, who is a kind of supernatural Stephanie Plum. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series (no vampires there!) Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter from New Jersey who always solves the mystery in the story and gets her man – just. Stephanie lurches from disaster to disaster but with the help of her family and friends always comes up smelling of roses. In many ways Rachel is similar. She has a boss who hates her and career that goes to new lows even when she thinks it can’t get worse (I think we’ve all been there!) She has a habit of accidentally cocking up simple things but with Rachel there is more scope for things to go wrong because she is a witch. She also has a great set of friends who help her out of tight spots.
My absolute favorite character in this book is a pixie named Jenks. He is definitely the humor in this book(cursing Tinkerbell constantly). He is always helping Rachel when she gets into a tight spot(literally he is a "pixie"). He is a business partner and lives with Rachel, as well as, his EXTREMELY large hoard of children. He and his children act as centries, and are a constant annoyance on more than one occasion to some of the other inhabitants.
One of the most interesting characters in the book is Rachel’s business partner and room mate Ivy. Ivy is a living vampire. In Kim Harrison’s world there are three types of vampire, living vampires who are born with the vampire virus, live lives where they can walk in the sun and worship at church before inevitably becoming undead vampires when they die. Low blood vampires who are humans that have been turned into living vampires, they need to be finally turned into undead vampires when they die by another vampire and undead vampires who are more like the traditional interpretation of a vampire, unable to bear sunlight, afraid of crosses, no conscience and a potential for evil behaviour.
Ivy and Rachel’s relationship is intriguing. They are also business partners and also live together. Ivy is desperate for a friend but has to fight her vampire instincts and blood lust whilst living around Rachel. Rachel needs Ivy but doesn’t want to end up as a vampire play thing. There is plenty of scope for the relationship to develop in later books.
Of course with every book there is a villian. This person being a Trent Kalamack. He is extremely rich and always asking for Rachel's help with something dangerous that always ends up with her almost dead. He is a mystery to the magic world. Jenks has a real keen sense of smell, but with Trent and his subordants he is dumbfounded. He knows the scent but he can't place it. I believe that he will become more important as the series progresses.
The book is very much based in magic and has a general supernatural theme. I recommend this book as an entertaining supernatural detective action book perfect for anyone who likes strong female lead characters and magic.
Rating: 5 out of 5
“Tink's a Disney whore"
- Jenks
No comments:
Post a Comment