Product Description

From New York Times bestselling author, Kim Harrison, comes the first book in an exciting urban fantasy series; packed with the perfect balance of wry humour and thrilling action, which will delight fans of thrillers and fantasy alike. Rachel Morgan is a white witch and runner working for Inderland Security, in an alternate world where a bioengineered virus wiped out a great deal of the world's human population -- exposing the existence of the supernatural communities that had long lived alongside humanity. For the last five years Rachel has been tracking down law-breaking Inderlanders in modern-day Cincinnati, but now she wants to leave and start her own agency. Her only problem is that no one quits the I.S. Marked for death, Rachel will have to fend off fairy assassins and homicidal weres armed with an assortment of nasty curses. She's a dead witch walking unless she can appease her former employers by exposing the city's most prominent citizen as a drug lord. But making an enemy of the ambiguous Trent Kalamack is just as deadly as leaving the I.S.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23236 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
'action packed ! chick-lit with a supernatural twist.' The Times 'A spellbinding blend of sharp wit and vivid imagination. A wonderfully fun romp through the supernatural world.' Kelly Armstrong 'Discovering a new series like this is like finding buried treasure.' Diana Gabaldon

About the Author
The only girl in a large family of boys, former tomboy Kim Harrison invented the first Brigadier General Barbie in self-defence. She shoots a very bad game of pool and rolls a very good game of dice. When not at her keyboard, she enjoys lounging on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching action movies with The-Guy-In-The-Leather-Jacket. She plays her Ashiko drum when no one is listening, and is hard to find when the moon is new.

Customer Reviews

Dead Witch Walking = Dead Good Book
As a fan of Laurell.K.Hamilton and her Anita Blake series I`m always a little sceptical when reading new books involving vampires and other preturnatural creatures.

However, from the very start this book proved itself worthy.

The main charactor Rachel Morgan is intelligent, beautiful, sarcastic and a little reckless.
She is joined/partnered by a vampire (Ivy) and a pixie (Jenks) and slowly throughout the book a bond is formed between them that is both heartwarming and at times funny.

This book starts a little slow in chapters 1 and 2 but soon picks up pace and keeps you interested.

If you`re a fan of the Anita Blake series then this should float your boat - or at least register on radar.

It is both well written and well paced with some good humor thrown in to add to it`s charm.

My opinion is that this is potentially the start of what could become a great series and Kim Harrison an excellent writer.

Only time will tell as the series devlops so I`ll leave you to make your own minds up - but I doubt you`ll be disappointed.

Great debut!
Rachel Morgan is a young earth witch working with the Cincinnati division of the I.S., an agency that specializes in catching supernatural criminals. Still, the red-haired, temperamental witch is unhappy with her job: things haven't been going smoothly and her boss hates her. So she decides to leave the I.S. dragging with her Ivy, a 'living vampire' who was her former partner and Jenks (a male pixie), her current back-up. Trouble is... you don't leave the I.S.; it's a contract for life.

This novel is the first for author Kim Harrison and also the first in her 'Rachel Morgan' series (currently at five books). While it doesn't have a very complex plot (it's your standard story of the heroine running for her life), it sets the stage for future books as it introduces the major characters and the world they move in. Strangely, the central figure of the story, Rachel, is not the most developed character in this book. Ivy, the vampire roommate and Jenks, the pixy are much more complex and tri-dimensional.

The book starts out slow and is even boring for the first five or six chapters, but the pace picks up and it becomes interesting enough. The writing style contributes to this; you can see a positive evolution throughout the book.

In the end, this book is worth more as a prequel for the novels to come than for it's story. If it was a stand-alone, it wouldn't be very good, as it has no complex plot and the heroine is quite weak, as if the author merely sketched her instead of fully drawing her. Rachel Morgan comes to life in future books as does the story. Dead Witch Walking is certainly not meant to be read by itself.

Worth a try!
Like the previous reviewer I found this book hard work to begin with. I had to really struggle to stay interested and didn't find the characters easy to get attached to initially. However, this did improve as I got further into the story and I will buy the next book in the series when it becomes available. I think part of the trouble was the sheer volume of information you have to absorb to get a 'feel' for this magical world and it's inhabitants and this slows down the story. Rachel Morgan is a witch who has been working as a'runner' for Inderland Security bringing in supernatural miscreants and not making a very good job of it lately. She decides to go it alone, which should have been simple but turned out to be downright dangerous and she spends most of the book fighting for her life and in the process finding out who her real friends are. I loved her pixy sidekick, Jenks and his vast family. Ivy the vamp is just plain scary not to mention hard work but I think there's more to Ivy than meets the eye. Nick the human (?) seems like a nice guy and Rachel is certainly taken with him but again there are secrets to unfold. And what about the magical old guy who lives across the road from Rachel - did I mention she lives in an old church - with Ivy - and the Jenks clan - nice touch! Add to this mix a bad guy who is really bad not to mention spooky, an ex-boss who's really got it coming (hopefully) and the odd demon and you have all the ingredients of a good new series. If you like Jim Butcher you will like this, it took me a while to get into the Harry Dresden stories although I loved Harry as a character from the start but I'm now a fan and I think this series is going to be the same. Give it a try!