Living With The Dead is Kelley Armstrong's ninth novel in her
popular Women of The Otherworld series. It features half-demon Hope
and werewolf Karl (the protagonists of the previous novel Personal
Demon) as well as introducing some new characters into the series
(the most interesting of which is Finn - the homicide detective who
can see dead people).
Robyn Peletier (a mere mortal), recently moved to LA after the
tragic death of her husband. Living in a haze of apathy, she has
taken the thankless job of PR agent for a for a spoiled, little
rich girl 'celebutante' (think Paris Hilton type), Portia Kane.
When Portia is found dead, a series of events unravel and soon
Robyn finds herself on the run, pursued by the killer as well as
the police who see her as a suspect. Lucky for her, her best friend
Hope is in town on a work exchange, and so she and her boyfriend
Karl, ride to the rescue to help Robyn clear her name.
Besides having a *gasp* human as the main character, Living With
The Dead also departs from Armstrong's usual style of writing.
Normally her books are written in first person with one character's
point of view. Personal Demon was slightly different in that it was
written in first person from a couple of different points of view
but Living With The Dead extends this further and is written in
third person from the points of view of five different characters.
Unfortunately the finished result is a somewhat choppy story that
never seems to gain any real momentum.
As a possible offshoot of the whole idea of having a human as the
main character, the main element of the story is also less fantasy
based and more grounded in reality. Apart from being clairvoyant
the 'bad guy' (or in this case gal) behaves much the way any human
villain would. She shoots people, she lies, she plots and schemes,
and she has no conscience or consideration of others. Just like
your standard human psychopath.
With its confusing mixture of changing perspectives and odd
combination of crime and fantasy plotline Living With The Dead is
(in my opinion) just an okay book and certainly not up to the
standards set by the other books in this series. Don't get me
wrong, I enjoyed it and was entertained by it, I just didn't feel
like I had been taken for a thrilling ride like some of Armstrong's
others books have done.