Vampire detective Jack Fleming's Lady Crymsyn nightclub is the favorite haunt for Chicago's elite. But among his patrons lurks a smarmy blackmailer and a dangerous mobster from New York--both unaware how deadly Jack can be.

Reviews

Thwarting a kidnapping, an attempted murder, and a mob war are all in a night's work for Jack Fleming, vampire, part-time investigator, and owner of the Lady Crymsyn nightclub. After helping his friend Charles Escott free a young girl from her kidnappers, Jack wants to make sure justice is served. Thus, he uses his vampiric power to hypnotize the crooks into confessing all to the police. What Jack does not realize is that the leader of this malicious group, one Gilbert Dugan, is a psychopath and therefore immune to Jack's form of persuasion. His troubles only increase when a mob war breaks out inside his club, and Jack's mobster friend, Gordy Weems, is shot by a gangster wanting to take over Gordy's territory. Set in Chicago in 1938, Elrod's tenth entry in her "Vampire Files" series features a wonderful cast of characters and a great deal of suspense leavened with touches of humor. Recommended for general and YA collections.-Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Columbia, MD

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. (Jan. 7) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.