From Publishers Weekly
The ninth entry in Elrod's Vampire Files series offers clever characterization, wicked wit and palatable mayhem, played out on the chilly streets of 1938 Chicago (nicely evoked in Steve Stone's dark, wintry dust jacket art), six months after the action in Lady Crymsyn (2000). Vampire gumshoe Jack Fleming and his intrepid English partner, Escott, successfully rescue a kidnap victim, but find their heroics spoiled when it looks like the head kidnapper will get away with his nefarious deed. While bringing their socialite-psycho villain to justice, they also manage to become embroiled in a challenge to their gangster pal Gordy Weems's turf and to straighten out a love quadrangle involving Gordy, his radio actress girlfriend, Adelle Taylor, and her ex-husband and his new wife, Faustine Petrova, an exotic Russian ballerina with an accent thick enough to spread with caviar. Meanwhile, there's Jack's nightclub, the Lady Crymsyn, to run, with help from perky Bobbi Smythe, Jack's chanteuse girlfriend, and Myrna, the Crymsyn's resident ghost. Jack's powers of super-hypnosis and dematerialization are taxed beyond even his supernatural limits, and the latest audio technology, mob politics and a meat-house torture scene worthy of Wes Craven come into the picture before this entertaining detective romp is over.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Elrod, well-known in the vampire-fiction subgenre for the likes of
His Father's Son (2001) and
Lady Crymsyn (2000), adds another case to her Vampire Files series. Vampire hero Jack Fleming and his human partner, Charles Escott, are trying to save a kidnapped girl before the men who took her get the money they want and kill her. Jack manages the rescue in the nick of time, but things get a lot more complicated when one of the kidnappers, Gilbert Dugan, figures out that Jack is a vampire. Dugan decides to blackmail Jack to escape being charged for the kidnapping. Despite the fact that he stands to lose everything, Jack knows that he can't let Dugan go unpunished. Throw in a little trouble with the mob, and Jack might just be having the worst day of his unlife. Filled with snappy action and sharp dialogue, and featuring a likable and worldly hero, Elrod's latest is certain to be a hit with the fang-loving crowd.
Kristine HuntleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
