Greywalker

Greywalker, by Kat Richardson. ROC Books, 2006.

This review is a bit late, since Greywalker came out in 06, but I'm sure there'll be a mass-market reissue soon. And besides, it took me a while to get to it, even after my editor highly recommended it to me.

Harper Blaine is a P.I. in Seattle, which is quickly becoming the new destination for Urban Fantasy. Unlike a lot of P.I.s who claim to be tough-as-nails, Harper's the real deal. After having a near-death experience, she finds that she can see past the veil of reality and into a kind of shifting Bardo world, called the Grey.

The first two chapters of Greywalker are charged with action, and so electric that they're almost disorienting to read. Then the plot kicks in with a vengeance, and you get to see Kat Richardson's gorgeous and fascinating paranormal world begin to unfold. After about the first thirty pages or so, I realized why my editor had been so excited about this book. Richardson's world-building isn't just compelling and overtly cinematic--it's truly original. Her descriptions of the misty, chilling Grey are beautiful and tantalizing one moment, terrifying the next, making it a kind of invisible character within the series in much the same way that New York was the 'fourth character' on Sex and the City. An odd comparison, I know, but I really felt that the Grey was alive and teeming with perplexity. On top of this, Richardson's vampires are scary. They scared the crap out of me without being cliche. She manipulates demonic mythologies in fascinating and unexpected ways, so that even a cynical Urban Fantasy buff ends up being surprised by certaint twists and turns.

The romance between Harper and Will is interesting, but not really a focal point. What I did appreciate, however, is that it's very much an adult romance. Calm, slow, interesting and gleaming with experience and humor. They don't leap into it with Urban Fantasy gusto, i.e., 'the world is gonna end, so let's get horizontal before I turn into a werewolf!' sort of thing. Ultimately, Harper is a loner, and I found myself really loving the image of this tough, no-nonsense P.I who can see through walls (and sometimes slip through them) going home to spend quality time with her pet ferret, Chaos. I never skipped ahead once in Greywalker. Each of the characters had some kind of draw, and I was especially impressed by Mara near the end of the book. She didn't go in any hackneyed direction, but actually cohered as a real, powerful individual. She also makes a kickass pie crust, incidentally.

There were times that the book left me quite literally out of breath, and that's rare. I only wish I'd found it earlier. I look forward to Greywalker the TV series, which seems only natural.

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