My first encounter with Kat Richardson was in 2009 in Jim Butcher's "Mean Streets", an anthology of four Urban Fantasy PIs that included Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, Simon R Green's Nightsider and Thomas E. Sniegoski's Remy Chandler.
Kat Richardson's "The Third Death Of The Little Clay Dog" was by far the best story in the book. Set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, it was an accomplished short story, full of local colour, mysticism and intrigue, lit up by flashes of humour. It left me wanting to know more about the heroine, Harper Blaine and what it meant to be a Greywalker.
Six years later, I finally followed through and listened to the audiobook of Kat Richardson's "Greywalker", book one in the Greywalker series.
It's a competent, well-plotted Urban Fantasy with some new twists on the supernatural and the "Grey" that sits between our daylight world and the world of magic or perhaps death. It suffers a little from an Series One, Episode One feel but there's enough there to make me want to read book two: a diverse cast of characters, so good ideas on the supernatural, well written dialogue and good action scenes.
What I missed, which I remember being present in "The Third Death Of The Little Clay Dog" was a strong sense of who Harper Blaine is. I ended this "Greywalker" feeling that I hadn't yet met the real Harper Blaine. Instead, I'd read her "origins" story.
Still, it was an interesting origins story and I can see that Harper Blaine has lots of potential.
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