The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
Molly Harper
Pocket, Jul 31 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9781451641837
In Half-Moon Hollow, Iris Scanlon runs Beeline a vampire day-time concierge business. Her clients ask her to take care of just about anything, which she does for a nice fee. Because of her variety of gopher tasks, Iris is an expert on vampirism, something she considers TMI especially for a church goer (at least on the Big days) like her.
She brings welcoming flowers and the contract to her newest client Mr. C Calix. Only he lies on the floor looking pale. He drank poisoned donated O blood. She refuses to give him her blood but provides him two tampered proof sealed bottles. Cal pleads with the daywalker to find him a hiding place while he works on who wants him dead-dead; Iris does for a fee. To her chagrin she is attracted to her acrimonious customer as Iris refuse to break her no fraternization rule.
Though the locale is the same as the Jane Jameson urban fantasy saga (see Nice Girls Don't Bite their Neighbors), The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires is a new offshoot series. This amusing romantic frolic stars a business minded human and an irritable vampire; who prove that only love can resolve the paradox of an irresistible force meeting an unmovable object. Harriet Klausner
Ripper
David L. Golemon
Dunne, Jul 17 2012, $25.95
ISBN: 9780312580803
In 1887 the British Empire hire American scientist Lawrence Ambrose to create a means to change a civilized person into a berserker war machine. In 1888, Jack the Ripper murders his last victim. At the same time, Robert Louis Stevenson visits Scotland Yard with information on the Ripper’s identity that he connects to his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde model, American chemist Lawrence Ambrose. Queen Victoria ended the project and ordered the secret execution of Ambrose who escaped with his notes.
In present-day Mexico, American government top secret Event Group geologist Sarah McIntire leads a team investigating caves where Pancho Villa allegedly stored his weapons. Anaconda the drug lord sends his vicious army to attack the geologist. They abduct Sarah. The Event Group sends a rescue team led by Colonel Jack Collins that uses information from General John “Black Jack” Pershing’s 1916 Mexican raid. However they are unaware that Anaconda has Ambrose’s notes and plans to use them.
The latest suspenseful Event Group thriller (see Legacy) is an exciting action-packed tale that deftly links Ripper to the contemporary war on drugs. Though the villain and hero are stereotyped, fans will enjoy this engaging entry filled with action and a thrill seemingly around every corridor and cave. Harriet Klausner
All Seeing Eye
Rob Thurman
Pocket, Jul 31 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9781451652222
Ironically Jackson Lee muses that as a psychic he never saw it coming when he was fourteen years old and he touched the dusty pink shoe in his family’s yard. The shoe belonged to his five years old sister Tess who told told him she was murdered. Due to him his family is massacred as well leaving a traumatic Jack left in the Cane Lake County Home for Boys, definitely not for the good. There he meets bookworm Charlie Allgood.
Years later, Jack becomes a carny psychic until he takes out his own shingle as the All Seeing Eye for hire. He keeps people at a distance except for his assistant and adopted sister Abby, and Houdini the dog. Fed Hector Allgood tells Jackson that Charlie, who died ten months ago, told him about his friend’s skills. The SOB blackmails the psychic into working for him on solving Charlie’s murder and on an experiment that turned violent. Charlie sense déjà vu as he expects his life will radically change just like when he touched Tess’ shoe.
This is an exhilarating twisting paranormal thriller starring a troubled soul who struggles with his psychic skill, his knowledge of his sister’s death and his belief he caused the follow-up massacre. Fast-paced, readers will relish All Seeing Eye as the traumatized protagonist knows you can go home because the truth will never set you free from truly leaving home. Harriet Klausner
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