Author: J.K. Gravier
First Published: 2021
Contains spoilers
Blurb: Allison Drew is a smart and ambitious government agent whose career is stagnating. Then she is surprisingly assigned a high-profile case that could get her attention. But she isn’t prepared for the web of intrigue and corruption that confronts her when she tries to disentangle a wide-spread string of crimes involving too much murder and more than a little blood. As her investigation hits dead ends and questions proliferate, Allie is forced to face the possibility that the organization to which she has pledged herself may have a secret agenda. To survive, she needs to question everything she believes and revisit some demons of her own.
If you just want a good procedural, thriller or horror story, this novel is that. But if you're also dissatisfied with how bureaucracy works, feel undermined by increasingly illogical administration and are frustrated with your place in North America’s late-capitalist economy, you might identify with the challenges Allie faces as she tries to just do her job.
The review: This is a neat little thriller with a touch of the detective noir to it. This is a world where vampires exist – but they are not supernatural. Preferring the term sanguinarianism to vampirism, they suffer from a genetic condition that causes a chronic allergy to carbohydrates and sunlight (the latter identified as erythropoietic protoporphyria) but also the advantage of living longer (by about twenty years) and showing less aging than someone without the condition. It is genetic, through familial lines, but not from the actual vampire, as they are infertile also. What the author creates is a group of people who were often kept out of school (for obvious reasons of sunlight exposure primarily) and were a lower social class generally. There has been an attempt to integrate into society through the federal government, though some – often referred to as Primitives or Draculas – believe that there is a supernatural element to human blood (most modern vampires subsist on animal blood, especially lamb, and meats primarily) and live to stereotypes and there is a danger that they might forcibly drain a person.
To this end there is the VBI – the Vampire Bureau of Investigation – which is aligned to and under the remit of the FBI. Allison Drew is an investigator and is sent to Detroit when a blood den, where daylighters – as none vampires are referred to – have been murdered for their blood. The local police accidentally found it and three bodies, but VBI forensics have ascertained (from blood residue) that up to 10 may have been murdered there. But her superior thinks that there may be a corrupt element in the field office and that tracking data (from an experimental chipping system for paroled vampires called Domesday) has been compromised. The novel follows her investigation and the twists and turns of internal – and possibly deadly – politics.
I really enjoyed this. The move into a realm of living vampires with a genetic condition was a nice way of framing the lore for a change and the writing was crisp and kept you moving along with the story. I do also want to mention the proofing as I noticed nothing in the way of proofing errors that so often creep into independently published novels, kudos for that. One thing I really liked was a moment that showed the impact of intersectionality, with African American vampires and the double disadvantage they face. Drew was a great character – not drawn as too overly impressive, her investigation skills might be designated as solid (and at times brutal, sun torture is a standard VBI tactic), her dialogue was engaging and the author avoided stereotypes that might accompany a female lead character in some prose. Overall, this one is recommended with the caveat that it is not, and never pretends to be, supernatural, and it is a thriller and not a horror. 8 out of 10.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
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