Customer Reviews

Walking Dead (The Walker Papers, Book 4)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
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Yet another series I CANNOT get enough of. "Walking Dead" is C.E. Murphy's latest in her 'Walker Paper' series about Joanne Walker, shamaness/auto mechanic/cop. Now if that combination doesn't make you want to read this series, I don't know what would!

It's been a chaotic year for Joanne. Her otherworld mentor, Coyote, died in the last book. But as in real life, major events presage major life changes and Joanne has finally (well, mostly) come to terms with all the weirdness that goes with being who she is. She's even spending time learning and practicing. And that's a good thing when her Halloween party is crashed by a few ghosts looking for a body. Then she and her police partner are called to investigate a robbery/murder at the local museum. You would assume the murder part would be the worst...but that would only be true if the robbery didn't involve a relic called Matholwch's Cauldron. So now Joanne has to figure out how to find and destroy a relic while dealing with: the two love interests in her life, an insurance adjustor who's being nosy about Petite, zombies in graveyards, the Wild Hunt, and a teenager who's had a sure vision of Joanne's death! What's a shamaness to do?

I enjoy this series so much. Joanne is NOT your typical heroine. She's almost six feet tall, more into muscle cars than muscle men, and is often resentful of what her birthright has given her. I guess that makes her the 'reluctant heroine' instead of the 'reluctant hero'. Yet her complaints fall just short of 'whine' territory and the combination of mystery, action, and magic is perfectly suited to my tastes.

On a more serious note, this series has much less typical 'romance' and I would rate it PG which means I don't have any problems letting my sons read it...and they love it too! Another keeper for my bulging shelves and another long wait for the next chapter in Joanne's life.

I am a huge fan of this series and I have been waiting forever for this installment!

For those of you new to this series- this is book 4. You must read the series in sequence inorder to understand the events:
Urban Shaman (The Walker Papers)
Thunderbird Falls (The Walker Papers)
Short story "Banshee cries" in Winter Moon: Moontide\The Heart of the Moon\Banshee Cries
Coyote Dreams (The Walker Papers)

Joanne is back, and better than ever. Yet again with the help of her partner Billy Holliday, she has to save Seattle from another paranormal crisis. All my favorite charcters from the previous books are back as well.

I love Joanne, because unlike the usual UF heroine, she is vulnerable and insecure yet strong when it comes to guarding those she loves.

My only complaint: Please Ms.Murphy can we have a little more development on the relationship between Joanne and Morrison! I am dying to see the two of them get together. He has so little face time in this book. Their relationship is one of the main reasons I keep reading this series. Please throw this devoted reader a bone and give me more Morrison and more romance between these two.

I can't wait for the next book in this series: "Demon Hunts" which comes out June 2010.

I love this series and it was a long wait for this book, but well worth it. Joanne is back and kicking it.I love it that the books are written in 1st person because you feel everything along with Joanne. She is such a complex character, strong yet vulnerable, independent yet dependent, open yet closed.

The greatest thing about these books is that you can witness Joanne growing as a person, she has changed so much since the first novel and i can't wait to see her grow even more into a person she can like. These books are not your standard easy-to-read urban fantasy, they have real depth and that is why i highly recommend you pick them up and give them a go.

Don't let the Publishers Weekly review put you off -- "The plot doesn't so much thicken as sag from too many tricky twists and a mishmash of mythology, including Celtic and Native American lore, witchcraft, stage magic, clairvoyance and gods, but at least Joanne remains an appealing protagonist. (Sept.)" C.E. Murphy does a great job mixing her magics and building a story worth reading. The characters are well fleshed out, interesting and caring of one another.

I have fallen for this series as well as for the Negotiator series. C. E. Murphy keeps the action realistic if it is possible in at a fantasy level as well as moving. Never a dull moment in Joanne's life. However, it is not all "peaches and cream" since she finally accepted her shaman powers. The mechanic tie-ins help keep the story anchored as it makes sense that you would use what you know to figure out things that are "way out" of your knowledge realm. I definitely recommend this series and agree with the other reviewers to get a complete understanding of Joanne's life and what makes her tick --- you need to read the series in order. However, if you just want to pick up a good action fantasy book to read and not worry too much about what has happened this book does a good job of explaining and catching you up without bogging down the series reader.

Normally I don't care for zombies in my fantasy literature - the ick factor is just too high for me. (I don't do horror movies, either.) This book is probably the first exception as Joanne disliked them as much as I do. I love that she now as a better sense of what she is doing with her shamanic abilities, and she has even studied a few things related to this so that she is better prepared for future needs. It seems to me that as Joanne better understands the mechanics of what she is doing, the better I, as the reader, can understand them, too.
At the beginning of the book Joanne is dating the mechanic she has nicknamed Thor. I really like the guy and how genuine and honest he is with her, but I feel sorry for him because I know that it is not him that Joanne really wants. She takes him for granted and does not give the relationship any real chance at surviving.
The mess with the cauldron is an interesting bit of folklore that ironically ties back to Ireland, where Joanne's mother comes from. I like also that it introduces some new characters, such as the medium Sonata, and brings back Suzanne Quinley from the first book. Suzanne has got some serious magic of her own, and the courage to use it wisely. This makes me wonder if the author couldn't give her a series of her own in the YA genre. My favorite part of the book is when Suzanne uses her future-seeing abilities and Joanne tunes in. Joanne gets to see all of her possible past, present, and future selves based on alternate choices she could have made throughout her life. This was absolutely fascinating for me because I am always wondering about the "what ifs" with the main characters of the books I read. How I wish more of the books I read would find a way to employ this tactic, heck I would not mind it in real life!
As for loose ends, there are two that really bug me. The first is the outcome of the annoying insurance adjuster, since he just seemed to fall of the radar at the end. The second is Captain Morrison and his ever-evolving relationship with Joanne. He plays a major part at the climax, but the reader does not get to see any sort of personal reaction on Morrison's behalf or his reaction to Joanne's new relationship status. I will just have to wait to see what happens in the next book, Demon Hunts (Walker Papers, Book 5).

Walking Dead (The Walker Papers, Book 4) brings us back to Joanne Walker, police woman, shaman & heroine extraordinaire. When the book opens, Joanne is starting to have some semblance of a life. She's hosting a party, has a boyfriend and is enjoying her new position as a detective partnered with Billy Holiday. Naturally, this is where things start to fall apart. The party is going well when dead souls start to arrive, sending everything into a tizzy. Joanne is forced to use her abilities in front of a lot of people she'd rather not, including Phoebe her fencing instructor and fledgling friend. But, these souls are just the tip of the iceberg & something bigger and badder is coming to town. The Cauldron of Matholwch is stolen and a black mist is settling over everything threatening to empty out the cemeteries on Halloween and there's been another prediction of her death. Oh, and her partner's pregnant wife is due to deliver any time now....

Such is the life of Joanne Walker. Her life was pretty uneventful until about a year ago when her dying mother invited her to Ireland for a visit. Since then, she's learned how her father's Cherokee heritage and her mother's Celtic heritage combined to create a unique soul--hers--destined for greatness. She's a very powerful shaman on a warrior's path and she's bringing along her friends and the Seattle PD along for the ride.

The latest installment in the Walker Papers series, Walking Dead (The Walker Papers, Book 4) brings us a Joanne Walker who is growing, both in her powers and in her maturity. In Coyote Dreams (The Walker Papers, Book 3), she chose to take a promotion to use her powers to help solve crimes while sacrificing a potential personal relationship with Captain Morrison. She's looking at herself as more of a successful shaman than as the wreck of a person she saw herself as in the past. Overall, things are looking up until the supernatural aspect of her life throws a monkey wrench into her personal life. Of course, she tries to take everything on by herself and gets thrown for a loop when her friends ride to the rescue. Once again, CE Murphy does not fail to entertain. I especially appreciated the references to The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman, although having read the book and seen the movie so many times that I can't remember if her references were truly from the movie or the book :) No matter, the humor is unbelievably appropriate to Joanne, who is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. My only hope for this series is that Joanne travel back to North Carolina to truly embrace her shamanism--maybe one of the upcoming books will tackle that?

Follow me at [...].

After crazy things erupted at her Halloween party, Joanne is yet again thrown into the middle of a crazy mystical scheme. Extremely old ghosts are surfacing with a vengeance and a cauldron that can make an undead army is stolen. Without her spirit guide Coyote she is forced to try and figure out how to stop whoever is trying to use the cauldron. Meanwhile she's trying to juggle her relationship with Thor, her feelings for Morrison and an extremely nosy insurance adjuster that just won't stop harassing her. To top it all off a teenager is having premonitions of Joanne's death, and she's never been wrong in the past

Ugh, so the saying "one step forward, two steps back" definitely applies to this book. In the last book Joanne finally confessed to Morrison about her feelings towards him. He gave her a choice in the end whether to accept a position as a detective or decline it an possibly pursue those feelings. I was a little surprised when she did do the responsible thing and chose the detective position over him. It would seem she is finally going to step up and take responsibility for her powers and learn to use them to do a lot of good for people. Its just a shame that this came at the cost of losing any chance at being with Morrison. There was a tension between the two of them that wasn't there before and I find myself missing their antagonistic banter. They both seem to be painfully aware of the other, and that just taints everything, including her relationship with Thor. I did feel sorry for him, but he really isn't what she wants. I still am holding out hope for Joanne and Morrison. because I cannot imagine the author being so cruel as to having all this develop between them for so many books but then never letting them have each other. Well, I truly hope that isn't the case.

The action was definitely stepped up a major notch in this book. Joanne of course is still mostly flying by the seat of her pants whenever danger arises. However, she did show more maturity and is well on her journey towards acceptance and building her powers. I hope now that shes chosen her path she will find some assistance or training from, well anyone. The poor girl needs some help figuring out how to really use her powers so she doesn't keep messing things up.

I really enjoyed this book, and the series just seems to keep getting better. I look forward to reading more about Joanne's journey, and continue to hope for Morrison and her to get a chance together. I guess only time will tell.

When Joanne Walker was left in a parking lot with a sword in her body, Coyote offered her a choice between death and life as a shaman. She embraced life as a shaman with healing powers and other mystical gifts. Her police partner Billy is not shocked by Joanne's new skills because he is a medium who communicates with the dead. Ata a Halloween party, a cauldron appears out of thin air; Joanne see that is a dark thing of evil. evil tries to trap her, but she resists the call.

The cauldron disappears leaving a massacre of evil behind in Seattle by raising the dead. It originally came from the Museum of Cultural Arts and the two security guards are gone from their posts; one was killed while the other has vanished.. Joanne believes the deaths of the guard and the cauldron are obviously linked, but she also receives further bad news when Suzanne whose soul she saved returns to tell her she had a vision of Loanne dying and it had something to do with the cauldron. Suzanne has a premonition that Joanne and Billy die on Halloween. They try to be careful while seeking the mage who started the horrific fiasco as the cauldron keeps reappearing leading to more deaths and reanimations.

WALKING DEAD is a special urban fantasy as the loads of action include the mundane and paranormal, which leads to a belief that Seattle is under siege with everyone trying to defend the city and fascinated fans going sleepless. The focus obviously is on the strong shaman who can travel to different planes as if she was hiking. The mystery behind the cauldron and its apparent power make for a fabulous investigation by the heroine and her partner at the same time they must prevent further destruction. C.E. Murphy is a great fantasist who makes the otherworldly devouring of Seattle seems so authentic.

Harriet Klausner

I am a huge fan of this series; of all three she writes this is by far my favorite.
I've waited like everyone else for this latest installment and it was well worth the wait! I like the fact that Joanne grows with each book: not making the same mistake twice, actually taking an active roll in educating herself and developing her skills for her lot in life. Not to mention accepting (albeit slowly) something she knows separates her from most of the world even more so than her upbringing.

The relationships of Joanne and her motley crew are fantastic and fully fleshed out. These are people you want to see every day and hang out with. I love that the relationship between Joanne and Morrison is slowly taking shape and not predictable. Who knows what will happen with those two...I hope something satisfying.

I would (and do) highly recommend this series to everyone no matter the age group. If you like sci-fi/urban fantasy you're sure to love this. Read them in order or you'll be lost to the references made to earlier stories and won't understand Joanne's frame of mind or perspective of the world. Start with Urban Shaman, then Thunderbird Falls, then the short story in the anthology Winter Moon, then Coyote Dreams, [...]

Now I just have to find other entertainment until the next one "Demon Hunt" comes out in June 2010...ho hum...