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Blood Crime Book Cover

Ratings & Reviews for

Blood Crime

Kim Harrison, Gemma Magno (Artist)

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5 stars
576 (40%)
4 stars
431 (29%)
3 stars
334 (23%)
2 stars
72 (5%)
1 star
24 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
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Nyssa
810 reviews69 followers
January 16, 2018
This novel was a much better experience than Blood Work. The story is more comprehensive and comprehensible. The artwork is crisper, stronger, more vibrant.

I also felt a connection between this prequel and the first primary novel of the series, Dead Witch Walking, that was missing from the previous entry.

While I was ready to pass on further graphic novels after the first one, I would now consider buying another, especially if Gemma Mango is the artist. I wonder if Harrison has additional graphic novels in the works.
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Craig
5,626 reviews141 followers
February 7, 2024
This is a second Hollows graphic novel, following Blood Work. This one has a different artist, but it mirrors the art from the first book rather closely, which I thought was an unfortunate choice. It's a simple story set before the first text novel which illustrates viewpoint character Ivy's relationships with her friend and partner Rachel and her vampire boss pretty well. It's a quick, fun read, but would leave hardcore sequential art fans disappointed and big Hollows fans wanting more depth; maybe that's why they never did a third volume.
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Deacon Tom F
2,357 reviews194 followers
December 13, 2022
Not really a great story. It sort of meander around and it’s easy to get lost with it.

The artwork is very nice.
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VampireNovelFan
426 reviews221 followers
December 11, 2012
Felt Like Familiar Territory

I.S. cops Ivy Tamwood and Rachel Morgan were having a pretty good week, working their beat, busting brimstone street dealers left and right. That is until they realize someone may be gunning for them directly. That'll put a damper on anyone's week. Fortunately dodging risky attempts on their lives, it's up to Ivy to figure out whose targeting them and why. Could it be Piscary? Does he want to eliminate Rachel to get Ivy back in his clutches faster? Or could it be a new big bad with something else in mind entirely?

My favorite format of The Hollows will forever be in written novel form, but I'll take it any way I can get it. Ivy fans will enjoy this book as much as the last, Blood Work. It's told from her POV even though Rachel maintains a consistent presence. It's not a requirement, but it will help to have read the short story told from Ivy's POV, Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil, because certain characters and events become relevant again.

Considering that this is a graphic novel, I'll start with the graphic part. The cover is actually a bit disappointing. The cover of Blood Work was one of my favorite parts about the novel. The colors and badassness really made it pop. This one? Not so much. It's dark and vaguely mysterious, but it's not interesting. I feel like the model should be wearing a more sinister expression.

It's no secret that I'm not particularly fond of the artwork. Even though there's a new illustrator, they implemented the original artwork so the overall style is unchanged. After reading this one, I'm still not a fan but it is definitely improved over the first one in a few areas. For one, the coloring is more professional. It's more vibrant and saturated, giving it an all around better look. Interestingly enough, I think Ivy looks better in this one than in Blood Work. But on the other hand, I thought Rachel looked prettier in Blood Work than she does here. Piscary looked pretty spot on to how I envisioned him in my head, and a new character, Celeste, actually had a pretty cool design. The artist definitely does better work with her own original creations.

The story itself was pretty good, if a bit short. It's natural to feel that way when a usual Hollows entry is over 400 pages. Though I'm pleased with the direction the later books have taken, I do miss the old I.S. runner days when they had to solve mysteries and tag bad guys. This book brings a little bit of that back. I liked how it continued the plot lines from Ivy's short story because it expands the vampire world just a bit more when it comes to their politics, connections, and the domino effect that comes with certain actions. There's a lot of inner turmoil with Ivy, fighting her attraction to Rachel, fighting her vampiric nature, fighting Piscary's mind games. That's pretty much all the poor girl does! Not to mention actually physically fighting the bad guys. Piscary was pretty scary at times, especially when pulling auras. He's certainly one you love to hate. Kisten's role is even smaller here than in Blood Work, but we do see enough to know how strong of a bond he and Ivy shared. Rachel wasn't quite as funny as she was in the first novel, but she still felt like Rachel, kicking butt, taking names. And seeing her cherry red splat gun in action again was pretty cool too.

All in all, I don't think these are the best that The Hollows has to offer, but it is worth a read and fans will appreciate the story.

*Review copy provided by the publisher
*Review also posted to Amazon.
Profile Image for Clay.
Clay
402 reviews7 followers
January 10, 2015
I've read seven of "The Hollows" books and I was lost many times as I read this prequel to the series. Several important plot points had no explanation, either in the text or in the art. This is especially annoying when a short caption or a couple of extra panels on the page could have made things so much clearer.

For example, Ivy and Rachel are checking out a warehouse. On the page, in panel 1 is Rachel chastising Ivy, panel 2 is Ivy looking chastened, panel 3 is Rachel throwing Ivy to the ground and shooting her splat gun at some (we assume) threat, and panel 4 is Ivy hitting the ground. What was the threat? Who was the threat? Was it really all that threatening? The reader is clued in three pages later that someone threw a metal rod at our intrepid duo. In the page I described above (with original page script included in the back pages), how hard would it have been to have three small inset panels of a hand reaching for a metal pipe, a shadowy foot on the stairs, and then a figure getting ready to throw the pipe like a spear? A threat to our heroes isn't all that threatening to the reader if we don't see it coming or even know what the threat is.

The whole ending to the main plot about someone trying to kill Ivy and Rachel was also quite anti-climactic. I assume it was going for an emotional edge to explain some of the initial relationships within the book series, but after a whole host of other narrative lapses (that could have easily been overcome), I just wasn't in the mood to understand what Harrison was trying to illustrate.
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Valerie
1,101 reviews79 followers
February 20, 2015
This was an improvement over the previous graphic novel adaptation of The Hollows, but just barely. The story is a bit more fleshed out and polished for this edition, yet it still comes across as stilted and wooden.

This edition once again is told from Ivy's perspective in the early days of working with Rachel. Someone is trying to kill Rachel or Ivy, or maybe both. Ivy suspects Piscary is involved, so that main emphasis for the story is the dynamic between Piscary and Ivy. Once again, the novels from this series more than covered this topic, so it just feels a little unnecessary.

The artwork, while vibrantly drawn, is still lackluster in facial expression and capturing the spirit of the characters.

The final product is just disappointing.
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Anna 'Bookbuyer'
664 reviews88 followers
May 31, 2020
I honestly didn't really like the art of this. I think it's because the characters look so different from the cover art. Especially Rachel. It doesn't help that it's in black and white so it's harder to tell.

I really liked seeing Ivy's 'vampire self' the ghostly thing was really cool and made a lot of sense to me.

It's really interesting to see the early relationship between Ivy and Rachel. Fills in a lot of the background.

Piscary oddly is one of the few who look almost the exact same as I imagined him. For some reason I think he is fatter thought? In my head

Ivy is pretty close to. Kisten is not.

I don't like seeing Ivy and Piscary together. You can just tell it's not a healthy relationship and also icky.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Yodamom.
Yodamom
2,096 reviews210 followers
September 27, 2014
Rachel, Ivy. Piscary, and Kisten all looked so ugly. The faces drawn so rough with ugly features. Where was Jenks ? How is it possible that Jenks would miss any of this ? This aaas a failure for me as a huge fan of the series. It was the art that was wrong, it took me out of the story and into some world that I didn't relate to.
Cheryl Nobles
57 reviews
March 26, 2019
I like the graphic novels but I want more of the story. I really liked the back section where she explained the process of writing a graphic novel. I thought that was very interesting.
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S.L.
Author 2 books15 followers
August 17, 2020
Finally got a copy! My collection is complete. A great further delve into Ivy's POV from early in the relationship. Did feel like a bit of an abrupt ending to this compared to the other graphic novel.
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Kat Day
Author 2 books30 followers
October 9, 2015
The second graphic novel in this series features a lot more of the Hollows lead vampire - Ivy. Though Rachel is still involved and still her feisty partner, she's not as frequent in this one as she is in the first, which is sad because her humor would have really uplifted the dark vibes of this one.

The plot is more about Ivy and her relationship with Piscary, but I did enjoy the fact that Art came back and the foreshadowing of his involvement later in the series (White Witch, Black Curse especially) and that we get to see how well Rachel picks things up. She's smart and although she's unorthodox, Ivy loves her for it so it makes for an interesting partnership.

The artwork is a bit different because the artists changed up a bit. I think Ivy is a little sexier in this one and that helps my mental image of her.

Fun stuff and an easy read. Recommended for fans of graphic novels and the Hollows series.
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Linda
2,042 reviews63 followers
December 31, 2013
Great graphic novella, showing you more of the dynamics between Ivy, Piscary & Rachel. Love seeing more from the Hollows!
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Lady Entropy
1,223 reviews46 followers
September 26, 2017
Look, I love me some Kim Harrison and some Hollows, but her graphic novels fail me in two ways:

- Ms. Harrison is not a skilled comic book writer. It shows because she has little knowledge of the medium pacing and design, although the second GN is better than the first. So the story is boring in one spot dragging like crazy, then it rushes in others. New characters have barely any characterization and let's not even talk about the motivation of the main villain.
- While I didn't notice that in Ivy's short stories, the GNs are obcessed with Rachel. It's as if the author can't tell stories where Rachel isn't the center of attention; and even with the story being firmly centered on Ivy and her issues, it's ALWAYS about Rachel. It becomes wearisome after a while.

The only reason why I'm giving this a 2 star and not a 3 star (it was better than the previous one) it's because goodreads doesn't allow me a 2.5 star rating.

This story is ... okay. The art is slightly better but the style ahd character design (and Ivy's ponytail) still hurts to look at sometimes. I suspect that the current artist is far better than the original one, and I wish she had been allowed to draw in her own style.

Other than that, this could have been a great short story (or book) but lost a bit in the process of being translated to comic book format.

I do think Ivy is a far more interesting character than rachel and I wish we could have a book with her.
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Skye
1,654 reviews3 followers
June 20, 2019
I finished off Blood Work feeling really tense. Although I know that Ivy and Rachel must have a good, ongoing relationship after this first case, I still was seriously concerned for Rachel’s health. Blood Crime helped to continue on this origin story where you understand a little more of Ivy’s obsession and dark past. It also highlighted the strength of Rachel and the potential fun and sass of future cases.

The vivid imagery throughout this graphic novel completely swept me away. As did the total darkness of the storyline. Obsessive love is constantly featured. Actually I wouldn’t even really call it love. Just obsession. An obsession that is all consuming and seriously not healthy. I expected it from Piscray. I didn’t expect Ivy to mimic and mirror many of these emotions. Alright, Ivy’s thoughts and feelings came from a much nicer place, but they’re still totally not okay, and kind of seriously creepy.

The crime story throughout this is kind of interesting. But the part that I loved most about this was the darkness. The revealing of the damaging relationships between vampires and the ways in which there is constant abuse. It was completely blood curdling. Yet when I started reading Dead Witch Walking, I was ten times more committed to the characters within the first page.
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Karen
Author 3 books2 followers
June 11, 2019
I'm not a fan of vampires and witches but I love graphic novels. I found this novel in a search of book shops at Hay on Wye during this year's Hay Festival. The story is not my cup of tea at all, but the drawings are fabulous. The book is worth buying and savouring for those alone. Gemma Magno - I'm a fan!
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Duncan
330 reviews
June 15, 2018
The story is excellent - very nearly enough to forgive the amateurish art. Gemma Magno needs to study anatomy, and learn to let her imagination, not her measuring tools and crash art course, soar.
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Joanne
2,037 reviews
March 18, 2019
DOESN'T HAVE the feel of the series and the graphics aren't great
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Tetra
783 reviews1 follower
October 26, 2019
I for one like the art much better in this one. It seems more like the Dark Horse Comics I read as a kid.
The story was a better back story to the series. Looking forward to the next addition .
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Nyssy
1,832 reviews
April 11, 2020
In assuming there's going to be a third graphic book? ✍
Chenay
362 reviews2 followers
April 29, 2021
This was a great graphic novel. I love the hollows.
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Laurie D'ghent
Author 5 books10 followers
October 23, 2023
I'm not much for graphic novels, but this one is well done. Lost a star for lingerie scene, but I was really pleased with this visual depiction of the vampire urges
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews

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