Labyrinth

June 14, 2010
Vampire dominance games and Harper Blaine's quest to free her father's ghost from a Grey maze add spark to Richardson's jumbled but juicy fifth Greywalker novel (after 2009's Vanished). Despite the sometimes complicated magical mumbo jumbo, readers will enjoy watching the plucky paranormal PI, her geeky boyfriend, and funny ferret Chaos battling evil. An ancient Egyptian entity, the Pharaohn-ankh-astet, pursues Harper from London to her home in Seattle, where bloodsucker-in-chief Edward Kammerling is missing, and his rival, Carlos Pires Ataide, desperately needs Harper's help in extricating the tip of a soul-consuming knife from his body. As this series continues its shift from paranormal mystery to more complex vampire-centric fantasy, Richardson's once-playful Harper is clearly evolving into a supernatural force to be reckoned with.

August 1, 2010

Since her death and resuscitation two years earlier, private investigator Harper Blaine has become a Greywalker, possessing the ability to traverse the Grey realm that exists between the living and the dead. When she returns from a trip to London, where she has gained some insight into her father's death and ghostly imprisonment, she discovers that the man who killed her has been murdered--and she desperately needs to speak to his ghost. The fifth installment of Richardson's popular Greywalker series (after Vanished) sheds more light on the mysterious events in Harper's past and expands her relationships with both friends and enemies. VERDICT Standing head and shoulders above the plethora of urban fantasies, Richardson's latest tale should appeal to fans of Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" and Tanya Huff's Victoria Nelson series.

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