Review: DEAD WITCH WALKING

Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison
Book 1 of the Rachel Morgan series

Genre: urban fantasy, chick lit

About Dead Witch Walking:

Forty years ago a genetically engineered virus killed half of the world's human population and exposed creatures of dreams and nightmares that had, until then, lived in secret alongside humanity.

Rachel Morgan is a runner with the Inderland Runner Services, apprehending criminals throughout modern-day Cincinnati. She is also a witch.

Used to confronting criminal vampires, dark witches and homicidal werewolves, Rachel's latest assignments - apprehending cable-stealing magic students and tax-evading leprechauns - have prompted her to break her thirty-year contract with the I.S. and start her own runner agency.

But no one quits the I.S.

Marked for death, Rachel is a dead witch walking unless she can appease her former employers and pay off her contract by exposing the city's most prominent citizen as a drug lord. But making an enemy of the ambiguous Trent Kalamack proves even more deadly than leaving the I.S.

Source: Info in the About Dead Witch Walking was taken from the back of the book cover.

Review:
This book reads like a female Harry Dresden by Jim Butcher. And just like the Dresden Files, delivers a wonderful reading pleasure!

It took a while to get into the story but I eventually did. The story telling quality while superb is not quite a masterpiece, a 4 out of 5. The story itself while not exactly an original is still quite good, another 4 out of 5. Character development is very very good! I would give it a 5 out of 5. The female protagonist is "human" enough to feel tired and defeated but still hero enough to still want to do the right thing. Makes the readers feel like, "hey I'm not perfect like that but maybe, just maybe, I could be a hero too". I will not say how or what the ending was because that will give out spoilers, but I would rate the ending a 4.5 out of 5.

Here's the kicker. My paperback copy is the UK edition with the ugliest cover ever!! The publisher's UK art department so needs to be fired! Holding that yellow book in my hands is even uglier. A yellow cover for an urban fantasy book?!? In the sales & marketing grid, this cover art will get a rating of zero in a scale of 1 to 5.

I enjoyed this book and would read another Kim Harrison work again. Overall, I would give this book a 4 out of 5.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries