Stalking the Vampire

Today's post is on 'Stalking the Vampire' by Mike Resnick. It is the second novel following John Justin Mallory. It is published by Pyr books which is an imprint of Prometheus Books and was published in 2007. The cover has John Justin with a gun in one hand and a stake in the other in front of a wall with missing person pictures and a ominous shadow in front of him. It is 264 pages long with three appendixes in the back with more fun information like a speech from John Justin's partner on hunting vampires. The story is told in third person close point of view. The intended reader is urban fantasy fans but anyone who likes humor, urban fantasy tropes, and good writing will enjoy this. There is nothing in this book to make any parents uncomfortable so all ages over 12 should be fine. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the Dust jacket- It's Halloween and John Justin Mallory's partner, Winnifred Carruthers, has been so busy preparing for the biggest holiday of the year (in this Manhattan, anyway) that she seems short of energy and pale. Then he notices the two puncture marks on her neck...
On this night when ghosts and goblins are out celebrating, detective Mallory must stalk the vampire who has threatened his partner and killed her nephew. With the aid of Felina the cat-girl, Mallory and Carruthers investigate clubs and lairs that only seem to exist on this one night of the year.
His hunt takes him to Creepy Conrad's Cut-Rate-All-Night Mortuary, where he questions the living and the dead, to the Vampire State Building; to the annual Zombies' Ball, to learn more about the undead; to the Hills of Home Mortuary, Cemetery & Delicatessen, where the vampire sleeps by day; and to Battery Park, where all of Manhattan's bats come to feed and sleep. Along the way he meets a few old friends and enemies, and a host of strange new inhabitants of this otherworldly Manhattan.
Locked in an intriguing battle of wits with the millennia-old vampire, Mallory has until dawn if he is to save his trusted partner.

Review- This is the first book that I read by Mr. Resnick. I was not prepared for how wonderful and funny of a writer he is but now he is one of my favorite authors. The humor in this book is more than just the making fun of fantasy and urban fantasy tropes, it is in the way that John Justin is so normal. In the first book Stalking the Unicorn, John Justin is from our world and is now stuck in the other Manhattan. So he handles things in a way that makes prefect sense to me at the very least. The dialog is was shines in this book and that is where the humor really is. John Justin has a very dry sense of humor and that comes through in the writing, the reader gets an excellent sense of who he is. We only see the world through John Justin's eyes but that does not feel limiting, it feel like it is trying to help the reader not over-whelmed by how much the other Manhattan is like ours but so not ours. The more that you have read, as in read other books, the more jokes you are going to get because Resnick knows his literature. The characters are funny, fun, and clever so you are going to like the people that you will meet in this book and when John Justin defeats the bad guy I was so impressed with the cleverness of it that the final two chapters are my favorites.

I give book Five stars out of Five stars because it is just wonderful and you need to read it. Like now. I get nothing for my review and this book was bought as a gift for me from my spouse.