Tall, Dark & Dead is a very fun urban fantasy/romance that I was unable to put down.
The plot moves at a rapid clip as Garnet, a witch who works at a magic store, tries to help Sebastian, a dead guy being hunted by Vatican witch-killers. There’s a host of other colorful characters to help and/or hinder her efforts. The characters make this book: even the minor ones are vividly drawn. I especially liked the sarcastic Matyas and William, who has been looking for magic without any success.
A few of the characters didn’t quite ring true (and one minor character seems to be forgotten about part way through), and Garnet’s growth as a person is pretty lightly sketched, but the rest of the story is entertaining and funny enough that those aren’t really distracting enough to be called problems.
I bought this book after the author read at Wiscon, but if I’d picked it up in the store and read the first few pages, I might have put it right back down again. It begins with a big chunk of backstory, and I didn’t really get interested until the dead guy walked into the magic store and asked for mandrake, which also happens to be the bit the author chose for the reading. At that point the plot started and I was hooked.