I’ve been reading Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series and unfortunately it’s not something I can review without some MAJOR spoilers. So here is a short breakdown of the books without revealing too much:
In The Good, The Bad and The Undead, three months have past since the events of the first book, Dead Witch Walking. No more hunting Rachel and she is finally making a name for herself but there has been a string of murders taking place in the city and they have been focusing on ley line witches. The FIB contracts Rachel to go undercover as a college student and snoop out their major suspect and since Sara Jane's boyfriend is among those missing she feels obligated to accept the job (Sara is Trent's secretary who in book 1 helped Rachel when she was captured as a Mink).
Glenn, the chief of police’s son is assigned to partner with Rachel, since she is not 'officially' working on the case. Immediately Rachel sees connections between Trent and each murdered witch, making him #1 suspect in her book.
A lot of bad mojo goes down in this book. It’s the beginning of the end for Rachel’s relationship with Nick. She mistakenly makes him her familiar so he feels everything as she funnels power from the ley lines through him and in the final battle Rachel forges an alliance with Kisten, Ivy's old boyfriend and Piscary's scion. The bad mojo that I mentioned earlier leaves Ivy very damaged and Rachel indebted to the Daemon Al (the demon that tried to kill her in book 1). She has committed herself to become his familiar in exchange for his help in escaping the ‘bad guy’
We really have no clue who this bad guy is until the end and I must say Rachel is one daring witch to have been able to walk out of that confrontation alive.
Grade: A
In Every Which Way but Dead our third helping of the Hollows there is a turf war taking place after the evil one from TGTBATU is put away. Quinn, Trent’s bodyguard cannot protect Trent during a meeting with a rival gang because he was bitten by a vamp in the previous book and he is vulnerable to their lure, so he hires Rachel to take his place (like she is not vulnerable).
Rachel has to pay her debt to the daemon Al and becomes his familiar, to do so she negotiates the release of his current familiar, an elf called Ceri. In the process she tricks the daemon and Al does not like that. Rachel has a unique genetic build that allows her to do daemon magic even though she is just a witch and this is why she is so valued as a familiar to Al.
We get to know a lot about Trent in this one as well as discover a lot about Rachel’s past (like the tidbit about her genetic markers). Every book makes Trent a little less evil and more a guy with his own fears and his own vulnerabilities. Rachel also develops a relationship with Kisten after Nick walks out on her. She has a huge argument with Jenks at the end of the book leaving the relationship with him fractured.
I found this to be the weakest installment so far. It seemed that there was plenty of action with Rachel battling her daemon in hopes to keep her soul intact and the turf war that brings a few new characters to the fold but neither of these story lines could sustain the book. Still you cannot skip any of the books since this series is so tightly woven you would miss a lot of info you will reference in the future.
Grade: B-
Both of these books were read in Audiobook Format
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