The Good, The Bad, And The Undead by Kim Harrison

Former-bounty-hunter Rachel Morgan has it pretty good. She s left the corrupt Inderland Runner Service and started her own independent service. She's survived werewolves, shape-changing demons, bad-hair days, and sharing a church with her vampire roommate Ivy. She even has a cute (if human) boyfriend-what more could a witch want?

But living with a reformed vampire isn't all it's cracked up to be, particularly when your roommate's very bad ex-boyfriend wants her back, and wouldn't mind you in the process. And especially when he's six feet of sheer supernatural seduction, and you've got a demon mark that makes vampires literally hotter than hell....

To save herself and Ivy, Rachel must confront the vampire master-and the dark secrets she s hidden even from herself.

My opinion: I thought the first book in the series was good, but wasn't sure when I would read this second book. But lo and behold it was one of the few books on my "want" list that I could actually find at my library, so I figured it was meant to be! This book finds Rachel struggling to make ends meet. Business is relatively slow and then she gets stiffed on a run she did so she can't even pay rent! She then gets pulled into a case by the FIB; someone is killing ley line witches and they think they know who. Their main suspect is a professor in ley line magic and "hire" Rachel to take her class and try to find out any information she can. One of the victims is the boyfriend of Sara Jane (the new receptionist for Trent Kalamack that he hired in the last book). She feels she owes this woman, since she was the only one who was kind to her when she was trapped as a mink at Trent's house. So she agrees to help, but it doesn't take her long to figure out that the professor is not the murderer. She becomes convinced that Trent is actually the killer, all signs point to him, but she can't prove it...yet. With the help of Ivy, Jenks, and Detective Glenn she sets out to find the truth. Will she make it through this run alive?
I thought this book was pretty good. It's easy to like the characters (especially Jenks) and it's hard not to develop a connection with them. I liked the story line; it seemed so open and shut, but I know that would have been too simple. And yeah, maybe the ending was kind of predictable, in a way. But it did keep my interest and make me want to read the next book in the series. I really don't care for Ivy too much. Hearing about her fighting her nature all of the time gets old. And Rachel gets annoying at times, she keeps making it hard for Ivy and doing things she shouldn't to provoke her, but she refuses to move somewhere else (which would basically solve her problem). Ivy attacks her a couple of times in this one and she just refuses to change the situation by moving in with her boyfriend. Very frustrating. Plus Rachel continuously puts herself in ridiculously dangerous situations without backup...who does that? Oh well, it makes the story more interesting at least. So, while not as good as some series I have read, it definitely sucks you in anyway and want to read the rest of the books!

My rating: 4/5 stars