I chose to read Dirty Magic because I enjoyed Wells's Sabina Kane series. It turns out that this new series is nothing like her previous work. Dirty Magic is essentially a police procedural with elements of the supernatural thrown in. If you are the type of urban fantasy reader who is heavily invested in a large world, this may not be the book for you. The greatest problem with this book for me, is that it was unbelievably slow. There were times when I thought about giving up and I felt every one of the four hundred pages I slogged through. The motivation of the antagonist were petty at best and it was evident once he was introduced his role in the story despite the slight of hand that Wells employed.
Kate is the typical urban fantasy heroine in that she has the requite tragic past, which includes the truly predictable dead mother. Considering the high death rate of mothers in urban fantasy, it is astonishing that women still wish to reproduce but I digress. Kate goes to group therapy meetings to deal with her addiction to potion casting. The problem with this so-called addiction is that Kate in no way functioned like an addict - granted she had been clean for ten years - but the urge to consume a substance one is addicted to never goes away. Kate is also heavy on moralizing and preaching to people and it became tedious after awhile. How many times does an author have to assert that the protagonist is the "good guy."
