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Tall, Dark And Dead (# 1) by Tate Hallaway
02/08/2008 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Headline. 280 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-07553-3655-5). Buy Tall, Dark And Dead in the USA - or Buy Tall, Dark And Dead in the UK  check out websites: www.madaboutbooks.com, www.reviewbooks.com and www.headline.co.uk
Sebastian Von Traum is tall dark and handsome, which is the quality most striking to our heroine, Garnet Lacey, when he walks into the magic shop in which she works. Then she squints to see his aura and discovers that he has none, not even 'that faint purple glimmer you get from a well-made zombie'. He is dead. Naturally, she goes for a coffee with him.
In a well deployed bit of back story we learn that Garnet is sometimes possessed by a deadly goddess called Lilith. She called on this goddess for help one Halloween night in Minneapolis when six Vatican witch hunters from the Order of St. Eustace assassinated the rest of her coven.
As I was raised in the One True Faith I should be uncomfortable with Vatican villains but the book is so enjoyably daft you can't take the slander seriously. Unlike 'The Da Vinci Code' this does not even pretend to resemble reality.
Anyway, Lilith killed all the witch hunter priests and Garnet had to dispose of the bodies. She got her vampire boyfriend Parrish to help her. Then she fled to Madison, Wisconsin, to start a new life and it's there our tale begins.
The book is written in the first person from Garnet's point of view. It is similar to a hard-boiled detective novel of old except the hero is a feisty witch woman instead of a shrewd male private eye, though she's as ready for sex as Phil Marlowe ever was. The chapters are named after astrological divisions, First House, Second House and so on for Garnet is into horoscopes as well as witchery.
Raymond Chandler once said that if a story flags you just have a man walk in with a gun. Tate Hallaway has a man walk in with fangs or a Vatican witch hunter with a gun. Each of the early chapters starts with Garnet being surprised by somebody new entering the fray. This works well and the plot clicks along very nicely. Garnet is a charming little witch with an agreeable narrative often humorous voice. She's not as deeply thoughtful as Phil Marlowe but is probably better looking.
Reader, there are no such things as vampires. Magic doesn't work, the Vatican does not employ killer priests and astrology is complete twaddle. Even so, this is an excellent book in the pure trash genre - well written and thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend it.
Eamonn Murphy
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