Walking Dead

Walking Dead by C.E. Murphy

Walking Papers #4

For once, Joanne Walker's not out to save the world. She's come to terms with the host of shamanic powers she's been given, her job as a police detective has been relatively calm, and she's got a love life for the first time in memory. Not bad for a woman who started out the year mostly dead.

But it's Halloween, and the undead have just crashed Joanne's party.

Now, with her mentor Coyote still missing, she has to figure out how to break the spell that has let the ghosts, zombies and even the Wild Hunt come back. Unfortunately, there's no shamanic handbook explaining how to deal with the walking dead. And if they have anything to say about it—which they do—no one's getting out of there alive.

After crazy things erupted at her Halloween party, Joanne is yet again thrown into the middle of a crazy mystical scheme. Extremely old ghosts are surfacing with a vengeance and a cauldron that can make an undead army is stolen.  Without her spirit guide Coyote she is forced to try and figure out how to stop whoever is trying to use the cauldron. Meanwhile she's trying to juggle her relationship with Thor, her feelings for Morrison and an extremely nosy insurance adjuster that just won't stop harassing her. To top it all off a teenager is having premonitions of Joanne's death, and she's never been wrong in the past

Ugh, so the saying "one step forward, two steps back" definitely applies to this book. In the last book Joanne finally confessed to Morrison about her feelings towards him. He gave her a choice in the end whether to accept a position as a detective or decline it an possibly pursue those feelings. I was a little surprised when she did do the responsible thing and chose the detective position over him. It would seem she is finally going to step up and take responsibility for her powers and learn to use them to do a lot of good for people. Its just a shame that this came at the cost of losing any chance at being with Morrison. There was a tension between the two of them that wasn't there before and I find myself missing their antagonistic banter. They both seem to be painfully aware of the other, and that just taints everything, including her relationship with Thor. I did feel sorry for him, but he really isn't what she wants. I still am holding out hope for Joanne and Morrison. because I cannot imagine the author being so cruel as to having all this develop between them for so many books but then never letting them have each other. Well, I truly hope that isn't the case.

The action was definitely stepped up a major notch in this book. Joanne of course is still mostly flying by the seat of her pants whenever danger arises. However, she did show more maturity and is well on her journey towards acceptance and building her powers. I hope now that shes chosen her path she will find some assistance or training from, well anyone. The poor girl needs some help figuring out how to really use her powers so she doesn't keep messing things up.

I really enjoyed this book, and the series just seems to keep getting better. I look forward to reading more about Joanne's journey, and continue to hope for Morrison and her to get a chance together. I guess only time will tell.

Rating:

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Walking Dead (The Walker Papers, Book 4)