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Haunted

Kelley Armstrong

Published 2005       528 pages

Reviewed by Ania Tyburska

Summary (from the book jacket)

Eve Levine made a bargain with Fate, and now she's come to collect, sending Eve off on a quest to retrieve the soul of an escaped demi-demon.  Playing ghost world bounty hunter isn't exactly what Eve had in mind for an afterlife career, but a deal is a deal.  Eve never breaks a promise... even when the cost of repaying that debt turns out to be more than this ghost can afford.

The Review

Haunted is a strange book. Considering the series and considering the whole genre. Not many books feature the characters that are dead. Not vampire undead. Simply dead.

Eve Levine, a rogue witch and half-demon, exists in a sort of afterlife for supernatural creatures, where she got sent after being killed somewhere in the beginning of the Women of the Otherworld series. The whole concept of the special place where the sups go after death is much better explained in the previous installment in the series: Industrial Magic, so I strongly recommend reading these books in order. Eve is hardly happy with her…life? She spends every awaking hour watching over her daughter, Savannah, who apparently is well and happy, living with Paige and Lucas the heroes of some other books in the series.

But something is about to change in Eve’s… life? (this book seriously messes with my vocab!). The Fates, which are sentient beings, not a philosophical concept, have a job for her. She needs to hunt down Nix, vicious demi-demon, who loves to pair up with serial killers and partake in some gruesome crimes. She enlists help from her former lover and Savannah’s father, Kristof (also dead) and they start their investigation.

Haunted is not a book for people with weak nerves. The part in the special hell for serial killers, besides being without a doubt the most imaginative in the whole book, had me skipping few pages and I am quite used to gory details. The story seems a bit unbalanced, leaning strongly in the direction of the psychological thriller. Which is hardly surprising as it deals with some of the worse crimes in the human history. Still there are some comic parts, most of them involving the moody necromancer, Jamie.

Eve is a strong heroine. She has a mean streak, is stubborn to a fault and likes to settle her arguments with physical violence. But that is exactly why she is perfect for hunting, or haunting, criminals. She can understand a sociopath. While alive, she was on a good path to become one. Her salvation was her love for Kristof and their daughter. After death she is beginning to understand exactly how important those emotions were.

If you like some ambiguity and difficult moral choices, you should definitely read Haunted. It is a far cry from your typical, sexy vampire romance, but maybe that is exactly why I liked it so much.

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