Review: Enjoyable paranormal take on police procedural
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 22, 2013
(★★★)  THE VAMPIRE MURDERS, by Matthew Blake (a NTM author), is a paranormal police procedural set in “early-20th century Seattle that never was”.  The reader follows the main protagonist--one Detective James Fekhal--as he investigates a series of grisly murders and slowly pieces together the who and why behind the deaths.Given its short length, the storyline and characters were well-developed.  I got a fairly good sense of Fekhal (seemingly hard-bitten/jaded but intrinsically decent) and the secondary characters added some color and humor to the story.  I also liked the sweet side romance with Sally, the librarian.For me, one of the main drawbacks was the sparse world-building.  Again, the setting is supposed to be an alternate early-20th century Seattle but I don’t recall anything to show <i>how</i> it was an alternate reality (other than the paranormal aspect, of course).  Also, THE VAMPIRE MURDERS seems to try for “noir” but the horror/suspense/dark edge never quite got there for me (maybe I read too much of this genre?).  And while Mr. Blake’s writing in general shows promise, the story could have benefited from a bit more “tightening” and contained numerous edit/proof errors (e.g., “Lee” noted as Fekhal’s first name but “James” is used later).Overall, however, THE VAMPIRE MURDERS was a quick read and I enjoyed it.  Depending on the subject matter, I would consider trying another one of Mr. Blake’s works.*  My thanks to the author for providing a copy for an objective review.