Felix Gomez came back from Operation Iraq Freedom with his own unique disease syndrome. After a firefight in which he and other soldiers accidentally killed a family, including a young girl, he met an unusual form of retribution: a vampire who honors Gomez' request to be punished by bringing him into the eternal brotherhood of the undead. With the help of modern cosmetics, Felix is able to venture out during the day and simply chalk his appearance up to a "skin condition" he picked up in the Persian Gulf. However, his simultaneous aversion to drinking human blood is having an unintended side effect: his "vampire powers" are slowly eroding away.
As the novel opens, his work as a private detective has caught the attention of an old acquaintance, who has invited him to the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado to help investigate a mysterious outbreak of nymphomania among some of the female employees. The guy can't seem to cut through the red tape to discover what sort of contaminants might have caused this bizarre outbreak - which is why he's willing to pay Felix $50,000 to uncover the truth. Since Felix is now up against some of the most lethal, nefarious enemies around (i.e., government operatives), he has to muster his flagging powers in order to find out what is behind all the "horny women" at the secretive facility.
His investigation proves surprisingly difficult, impeded in part by the fact that every time he attempts his vampire hypnosis on one of the victims of the nymphomania, he runs into trouble. He has some assistance from local vampires and another mythical ally, but also another problem: vampire hunters from Eastern Europe who are bound and determined to take the stake to every available vampire. As he uncovers the improbable reality and Byzantine secret operations at the base, the evidence seems to suggest the truly impossible: that the most absurd, crackpot theories of UFOs and alien abductions may well have some basis in fact.
Acevedo manages to take his campy plot and make the most of it, avoiding the easy exploitive angle and infusing more dark humor into the story than overt titillation. He seems determined to have a bit of fun in merging his horror with the hard-boiled detective genre. The plot seems a bit uneven at times and yet overall this campy retake on the vampire myth is oddly engaging.
The Once and Future King
In the entertaining BBC comedy series As Time Goes By, the crusty character played by Geoffrey Palmer decides to read some of the books he "thinks" he read as a child (such as The Tales of Winnie the Pooh). For me, T. H. White's seminal work of Arthurian lore was one such title: a book one dimly remembers "maybe" reading, but which one perhaps knows more "about" from other sources than the text itself.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
Excellent timing. I was just looking for an overview of the politics of the 1590s in England, and up popped this article. Thanks!
2 - Natalie Bennett
The A Hole in Juan section of this article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!