Customer Reviews

This Witch for Hire (Dead Witch Walking - The Good, the Bad, and the Undead)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This books is a two book compilation: Dead Witch Walking, and The Good, The Bad, and The Undead. The writer, Kim Harrison, combines horror, gothic, detective and fantasy genres, effectively producing 2 greatly entertaining stories. She creates a world where witches, vampires, pixies, fairies, werewolves, trolls, et al are common. In fact, due to a tomato virus plague that wiped out most of the humans, the supernatural creatures now outnumber humans.
Our story heroine is a witch bounty hunter private detective who is partnered with a female vampire and a male pixie. In the first book, she resigns from a federal agency and immediately gets on the agency's assassinate list. In the second book, somebody (or thing) is killing witches and our heroine has to solve the murders, make a living, as well as keep her vampire partner from eating her.
Highly recommended.

I usually don't read this type of book. I'm more into female sleuth and cozy mysteries, but after reading the Charlaine Harris vampire mysteries (now on HBO called True Blood), and loving them, I decided to try this series. I'm sure glad I did. I have read every one of them straight through and can't wait til the next one. My daughter says she can't believe I read these since I don't believe in vampires, witches, werewolves, etc, but if I believed in them, I don't think I could read the books about them. I'd be too scared! This series has people you can relate too (yes, even the vampires), and I love that little pixy family. Since pixies only live for 20 years, I'm just dreading the thought they will die in one of the stories....I know it's fiction but I'm becoming so fond of them. There's humor which keeps me reading them. And believe it or not this witch isn't afraid of poking fun at the everafter characters...even when they threaten to send her to the everafter. Don't let the cover picture on dust jacket throw you. The main character is completely serious and very likeable. Hey, you'll even like the vampires and all the rest of the characters you always heard was so bad. Okay, maybe I'm reading them for the humor but what the heck, I have to have some reason to tell to my daughter or she will think I'm becoming "weird" (her favorite word). Here's one example of the humor in the book...it kind of sneaks up on you. The main character, Rachel, the witch is going after some bad guys and she leaves the house with her splat gun (which contains sleeping potions, she's not allowed a real gun) with her pixy partner on her shoulder (he's 6 inches tall and carrying his teeny sword). She hikes up her britches and thinks, "yes, we bad." A one liner that tickled my fancy.

DEAD WITCH WALKING
Dead Witch Walking introduces us to the different, but not so different world that is The Hollows. Half of the human population has been wiped out due to a genetically altered tomato epidemic (known as The Turn), and the Inderlander species--comprised of witches, vampires, werewolves, pixies, fairies, demons, and more--come out of hiding to help rebuild society.

This book is the first person perspective of one of those species, Rachel Morgan. Not surprisingly based on the title, she is a witch who is a bounty hunter for a law enforcement-like agency known as the I.S. (Inderlander Security). Unhappy, she strikes out on her own to start her own runner business and is joined by vampire Ivy Tamwood, and her pixie partner, Jenks. The I.S. is none too happy about Rachel taking the vampire with her, so now she's got a bounty on her own head.

While overall this series is my favorite, this book is actually one of my least favorites. Sure, like with every Hollows book I've read, there is something or another that I love, but I actually put this book down before I could get to that part. I read it for a bit, put it down for a while, and then my best friend (who was farther along than me at the time) had to bug me to keep reading since supposedly the future books got better. Well, I was so glad to have heeded her advice. One day I picked it back up, we got to Kalamack's office and that was all she wrote. I am now an avid Hollows enthusiast since 2005.

I love Rachel's character. She is so likable, fun, and funny, simply trying the make the best of the situation she was given. Jenks is such an amazing side kick and it's always amusing imagining him cracking some sort of vulgar joke. Ivy's pretty kick-ass too.

So I warn you that if you have problems finishing this book, please keep it up. It gets so much better (especially by book 3 which is hands-down my favorite until the more recent book 9) and it's really one of the best urban fantasy series you're going to find. I've been reading up a storm lately, so I know. Very few have such an amazing amount of world building, dynamic characters, and an unpredictable plot. It also probably helps that my personal preference tends to be lighter urban fantasy instead of dark urban fantasy.

This book is a 3/5, but I rate the series as a whole like Rachel rates Trent's backside, a 9.5/10.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNDEAD
The second installment of the Rachel Morgan/Hollows series takes place a few months where Dead Witch Walking left off.

Rachel's settling into her freelance career, her roommate situation with Ivy, and her Pixie sidekick, Jenks. She accepts a contract to investigate a wave of witch murders and she goes undercover to spy on her former professor. Rachel suspects Trent Kalamack--murdering drug lord and businessman extraordinaire--of the murders. She's still none to keen on when he trapped her in his office as a mink.

We learn a bit more about Trent in this book, answering a good deal of questions from the first book. I thought this book overall was a little more gruesome than the first book in its description of the bodies. It reminded me a bit more of other dark urban fantasy and horror books. The action and wit are definitely on par, keeping the series from being overly dark.

Personally, I was bored out of my skull with her relationship with Nick. It's sort of hard to trust someone you meet in the rat pits, but what can you do? The romance in this book is sort of blah, at least until the end when things get...interesting to say the least.

Overall, I liked this book tons more than Dead Witch Walking. I originally put that book down until I was badgered to finish it and keep reading by a friend. I didn't have the same issue with book 2. I read it fairly quickly and by the end I wanted to get my hands on Book 3 ASAP!! As a long time Hollows fan, it's really fun to think back on how I felt about each of these books, which eventually led to this becoming my favorite series.

i read this book right after "guilty pleasures" by laurell k hamilton. Picked it up by chance in a used book store. though i enjoyed "guilty pleasures" and plan on continuing that series, this book wasn't as dark. loved jenks the pixy and his whole family. looking forward to reading more of these books, since all questions haven't been answered. especially want to know if rachel and trent end up having more of a relationship.

This book kind of got off to a slow start, but it got better and by the end of the book, I was looking forward for the next one.

If you've not read Kim Harrison in the past, RUN... don't walk... to grab up this selection of her first two Rachel Morgan / Hollows books (includes Dead Witch Walking/The Good, The Bad, and the Undead). Harrison is among those authors whose fiction never fails to make me smile. She creates an amazing world filled with magic, mayhem and truly likable complex characters. If you enjoy Jim Butcher, Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris or any variety of supernatural or detective fiction, these characters will totally win you over. I've been a devoted fan since the very first book, and trust me... they only get better from here on out. Harrison has created her own brand of irreverent snarkiness with the Rachel Morgan character. She's strong and sexy without being a sleaze queen, which is refreshing. This series is complex without being convoluted (nothing irritates me more than an author who can't keep his/her own plotline straight!), truly magical without being twee, and unlike some of the overly simplistic stories that are often found in this genre, there's no shortage of surprises. Harrison's world of The Hollows is utterly inspired. This is fun escapist fiction at its absolute best!

Dead Witch Walking and The Good, The Bad, And The Undead is in this Omnibus edition.

There's another Omnibus edition called Dead Witches Tell No Tales which includes Every Which Way But Dead and A Fistful of Charms. Never read it.

'This Witch for Hire' was nothing like I've ever read before. It was funny, it was unigue. I do not like vampires, zombies. Not crazy about witches either but I do like fantasy. Some fantasy that is. I don't care for all that swash buckling swords and sorcery stuff. I do like Urban Fantasy tho I've never read much of it. I'm open for recommendations.... please.

The only thing I didn't care for was the the waaaay over-the-top handling of Rachel's fear of her business partner Ivy, a living vampire. The blood lust thing. The homosexual thing, if you can call it that?

Jenks the pixie is the real star. I hope Jenks never dies. BUT unfortunatly I just found out last night while reading "The Outlaw Demon Wails" that pixies only live 20 yrs. and Jenks wife is close to dying. So Jenks must be close as well.
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I liked the first half of Tanya Huff's Stealing magic, Hobb, Robin,
Some of Bujold, Lois McMaster were ok. Gaiman, Neal of course. T. Pratchett, Tolkien, T.Brooks early Shannara,

Katharine Kerr I can' remember but I don't think so.

R. Scott Bakker, Raymond E. Feist, Martin, George R.R are too much for me. I don't like Wilson, F. Paul, Cook, Glen, Foster, Alen Dean, Dekker, Ted, Wolfe, Gene, Zahn, Timothy, Pullman, Philip, Jim Butcher