Dead Witch Walking, The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, and Every Witch Way But Dead by Kim Harrison

[lightreads]

Fiction. Science fiction/fantasy. The first three of a series. A generation ago, a bio-engineered plague swept around the world, decimating the human population but leaving witches, vampires, weres, and other species alone. In the aftermath, these groups made themselves known to humans. Decades later, Rachel Morgan, a witch, embarks on a career of freelance private investigating and general mayhem, against a backdrop of a world uncertain about the place of all its
peoples, tormented living vampires, uppity pixies, and a universal, crippling terror of bio-engineering and genetic manipulation. The first book is a bit of a popcorn read, though the touted resemblance to the Stephanie Plum novels fades after the first hundred pages. It's worth sticking out the airily skeletal world building to get to the second book, where Harrison finds her feet and really takes off with some seriously compelling long-range plotting, and a demonstrated commitment to playing out some of the moral ambiguities built into the universe (she's taking all the time she needs, with a nine book contract). Rachel is brash, kickass, and competent, and many of her relationships are intense and sweet, and occasionally sizzling (yay textual femslash and kinkiness!). I do have complaints -- Rachel is a bit too often the center of everyone's concerns, and there are still some sloppy sociological threads dangling -- but I like these a whole lot and I'm definitely sticking it out for the long haul.