As part of my celebration of the re-release of
The Very Bloody Marys here's another rave review - this one by Dru Pagliassotti on
The Harrow site:
Le
Conseil Carmin is concerned. People are being killed on the streets of
San Francisco by a gang of Vespa-riding vampires called The Bloody
Marys, and the hard-assed cop the conseil had expected to investigate
the crimes, Pogue, isn't answering his doorbell.
Which
means the investigation must fall to Pogue's screwup of a deputy — the
insecure, disrespected, nervously chattering vampire Valentino, who's
painfully aware that he's in over his head and only hopes he can keep
treading water until his boss returns.
Until a faery kills Julian, his one true love.
Suddenly, Valentino's out for vengeance.
Zombie
taxi drivers, golems of Abraham Lincoln, a four-star restaurant in the
city morgue, vampires, warlocks, fairies, ghouls, and angelic
apparitions: they're all denizens of The Castro's other night-life, and
Valentino must bluster his way through them as he hunts for a murderous
faery, his missing dickwad of a commanding officer, and — of course —
the pretty and ruthless Very Bloody Marys.
M. Christian
has created a character with an unforgettable, if unceasing, narrative
voice, an amusing and cliche-busting antidote to the overpopulated
literary ranks of hardboiled vampire detectives. The world of Le Conseil
Carmin, where vampires literally work for Blood Money and protect
humanity from creatures much worse than themselves, is well-wrought; the
plot twists, although initially baffling, all get satisfactorily
straightened out; and Valentino, a less-than-enthusiastic member of Le
Corps Policier Contre, has a self-conscious charm that will appeal to a
broad spectrum of readers.
Fresh, quirky, and irreverent, The Very Blood Marys is a vampire novel for readers who've become bored with vampires.
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