Maggie For Hire by Kate Danley

3.5 Stars

As an Urban Fantasy this just about works, although for me it was more outright Fantasy with the tale taking place both in modern day LA and then a parallel LA than can be reached if only you know how to open, or access, a portal.  There is also a lot of ambiguity about a lot of the characters we meet, particularly in the "real LA" - are they genuinely of this time and place or are they voyagers from the parallel world?  This ambiguity did spoil things for me as I would spend time wondering about a minor character (who has no actual bearing on this story) and find myself 3 or 4 paragraphs further on and having to backtrack and re-read.

The base story is actually pretty straight forward, it is just gussied up with a supernatural element to Maggie's bounty hunting.  Then rather than some covert para-military group causing issues it is a breakaway vampire sect.  Of course Maggie has to have a sidekick - don't all battlers of evil / vaguely detective types?  In this case it is an Elf, to be honest he does fit the moderately useless but pretty sidekick trope rather well.  The world building is fairly pedestrian and we never really learn too much about the "real LA" Maggie inhabits or it's counterpoint, just general overviews of each.

Fortunately, Maggie is smart and snarky and doesn't seem to think that she is invincible.  In fact, she is nicely aware of her human vulnerability - especially against vampires.  The writing itself is enthusiastic and peps along through the story at quite a pace.  Unfortunately, it does kind of mask the shortcomings of the plot and that the bare bones of the world are only partially fleshed.  That said, whilst reading the story I did find myself enjoying it and whilst not breathlessly turning pages I was fairly well immersed and, therefore, interested in how things were going for Maggie and Killian.

Not the best of the genre but a long way from the worst.  Not too sure I am invested enough to check out the rest of the series though.