This review will be pretty straightforward. I could not stand Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking.
Dead Witch Walking is rightfully categorized as “urban fantasy.” Unfortunately that label applies to two wildly different strains of storytelling.
On the one hand, you have writers like Kim Harrison, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Patricia Briggs. You might call these authors descendants of Anne Rice, blending the supernatural, horror, and romance.
On the other hand, you’ve got Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow (at least for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town), and Emma Bull. The intersection of the urban and the fantastic is the central focus. The romance is secondary or non-existent.
I’m a fan of the latter camp. Trying to extend my canon, I foraged on Amazon, came up with Dead Witch Walking, and wound up in the former camp. I did not enjoy the experience.
Rachel Morgan, the heroine of the story, is a supernatural bounty hunter. She practices her trade in Cincinnati, Ohio. A fictional area known as “The Hollows”, just across the river from Cincinnati, houses various fantastic sorts such as vampires, pixies, and demons. At the start of Dead Witch Walking, Morgan works for a big, soul sucking, bureaucratic organization. In the process of quitting and starting her independent agency, she becomes a marked woman. Solving the mystery of who’s after her and why takes up the bulk of the book.
In regards to the writing, I had two major beefs with Dead Witch Walking. First, there are a number of points where sexual tension is built up, but not resolved. I don’t need a tell all porn show, but no satisfaction is just irritating. Even the resolution of the main mystery left me wanting. Second, the world of The Hollows just didn’t project a satisfying, internal consistency. Maybe I need to be better educated about the mythos that Harrison was leveraging, but there were many elements of the fantastical milieu that left me going, “Hunh? Why?”
In the end, I don’t want to disparage Harrison’s abilities as an author. Clearly, she resonates with many people she is making quite happy. As for me, Dead Witch Walking was easily my worst read of 2008. Just not my cup of tea.