Sara Gran is launching a wonderful new series with Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. It’s original, yet has a comfortable air of familiarity; it’s witty and funny, yet manages to have an intensely dark and emotive undertone.

Claire DeWitt is the perfect detective for any urban fantasy lover; think of her as a slightly less dark version of Stacia Kane’s “Chess” (Downside Ghosts, and we all know how much I loved that series!).

The story is well written, but it can take a tiny bit of effort to follow the story if you’re reading it ‘blind’ , at least until you get more of the cleverly woven  back story come to light; initially I just found this a little confusing as I wasn’t clear on it being ‘back story’.

I couldn’t guess the ending, but as the story unfolded the plot flowed and the mystery unraveled, so there wasn’t a surprise ‘twist’ as such, but more and increasing sense of anticipation the reached a rather wonderfully creative conclusion.

The City of Dead isn’t an overly complicated novel, but it’s not light and fluffy; it’s not a suspense filled thriller, but it’s also has some very intriguing directions. As the first in the series, I think I’m hooked. The characters and likeable and well developed, there’s a great backstory to tie future books in the series together, but it’s written in such a way that each story should quite happily be able to be read as a standalone. Of course, as a series reader, I can’t understand WHY you’d want to read just one Claire DeWitt novel.

Rumour has it that this is to become a TV series, so I’m delighted to be able to say “I read the book first… and it’s wonderful”.