The Vampire Files: Volume I

PN Elrod's "Jack Fleming, Vampire PI" series is a great read with humour and a fantastic setting in 1930s Chicago with film noir aspects. This collection of the first three stories is excellent value for money. BLOODLIST The story begins with "Bloodlist" where we meet Jack Fleming waking up having crawled out of the sea. No sooner has he staggered to the road when a passing driver clips him with his bumper - clearly on purpose. Jack finds himself in discussion with the car driver and discovers that he is supposed to be dead, killed because he wouldn't tell people where an important list was hidden. Jack realises pretty quickly that he has become a vampire. Fortunately he knows about the vampire life, having had a vampire girlfriend previously, and he prepares his life accordingly (fetching some of his home earth, finding somewhere safe to sleep the day, feeding from the stockyards). Elrod gives her own particular selection of traits to vampires - garlic, crosses and invitations into rooms don't work, disappearing, extra strength and glamour do. What's fun about this story is that we learn about Jack's skills and nature as he does and because he's clearly not evil, just a pleasant and friendly ex-reporter who wants to get to the bottom of his own death. Chicago is a city of gangsters and other dodgy types in this story and Jack falls foul of several of them. What's great about Jack as a character is that if he were fully human he would have died multiple times as he really isn't quite up to dealing with these characters. However his vampire nature gets him out of a lot of sticky situations and also enables him to have a great time scaring some of the people who were involved in his death. Assisted by the trusty Charles Escott, a brave private agent and sometime actor, the two of them try to find out why Jack was killed and what was on the list. In the course of their investigations Jack meets Bobbi, girlfriend to one of the gangsters and a surprisingly phlegmatic person who seems able to cope with his vampiric nature. There are a lot of amusing jokes and allusions to various books and films which went over the head of this relatively young English reader but that didn't matter as the story was always enjoyable. The best parts are when Jack is 'haunting' his killers but the fun is interspersed with some serious moments as he slowly begins to remember all that they did to him and to come to terms with his new nature. This is an excellent first story in the series and Jack is a great new character, both as a vampire and also as a slightly hapless investigator. LIFEBLOOD The second story, "Lifeblood", takes place just a few weeks after the first story finishes. Jack and Bobbi have settled into some kind of a relationship and Jack also spends some of his time helping Escott with his private investigations. However they soon decide that it would be wise for Jack to have some more of his home earth stored at Escott's place in case he has a problem

What a concept a vampire reporter, working for a detective, fighting the mob. Fast paced, witty, and complex at the same time, keeps one guessing. Like it so much bought the series.

I'm not going to review the plot of the stories here. Other reviewers have done a great job and I owe them a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Elrod's story. What I will address here is just how compelling the stories are. Rarely do I find myself drawn to think about a storyline and/or character during every waking moment, but I couldn't stop myself. Are Elrod's stories stuff of great literature like War and Peace or The Three Musketeers? No. Are these three stories captivating? ABSOLUTELY! Elrod's writing flows smoothly, her characters are interesting, funny, and the reader can fully identify with them. The vampire issue is just a mild charater feature and add on. I simply couldn't stop reading the stories. I was happy to have this volume rather than three separate books. This way, once I was finished with one story, I could plow on ahead into the next. And I did that more nights than I should have. I stayed up way late past my bedtime reading them. These three stories really flow like one continuous story with mild plot adjustments kinda forcing you to read on into the next story. The Vampire Files and the story of Jack Fleming are addictive. The type is easy enough to read and the book paper is fairly durable. That's important 'cause I'm going to be reading this volume again. Sooner rather than later if I don't get Vol 2 fast enough. (It's in the mail as I write this.) Have fun with this series. Elrod did. But remember to get some sleep.

These are the first three books of P N Elrod's vampire detective series, set in thirties Chicago. Her attention to the details of a period setting pays off, as does her attention to character. The books combine humor, suspense, detection, and a consistent attention to the practical necessities of living as a being with both supernormal powers and special disabilities. Her vampire, Jack Fleming, is actually less dark as a character than his friend and associate Charles Escott, much less the gangland characters they both sometimes associate with. The series continues beyond these three books, and spins off into the Jonathan Barrett and Quincey Morris books, also first person vampires with period settings featuring likeable and very human bloodsuckers. The vampire books she does with Nigel Bennett are quite different, with a different and obnoxious style of vampire character (an incompetent and morally vacuous vampire version of James Bond.) One can hope she will turn that series over to Bennett and do more work on her own.

In literature and popular culture there are the Bram Stoker vampires of Dracula, the Anne Rice vampires like Lestat, Louis and Armand, and the Joss Whedon vampires of Angelus, Spike and the Master. A distant, but by no means a poor relation, are the vampires of P. N. Elrod. "The Vampire Files" collects the first three novels in the Jack Fleming, Vampire P.I. series, where a slightly different type of vampire inhabits the film noir world of the hardboiled detective. "Bloodlist" introduces us to Jack Fleming, who does not remember how he became a vampire let alone how he ended up dead, which lends an air of mystery to "Bloodlist." Jack was (is?) a reporter, so he sets about to learn who wanted (wants?) him dead. Fortunately, shortly after waking up on the beach a goon tries to run him down and tells Jack, after some encouragement, that he had some sort of list that is important enough for some gangster types to want him dead. Unfortunately, Jack remembers none of this. Allied with Charles Escott, an eccentric private investigator and former actor who is fascinated by Jack's current, ah, condition, our hero gets closer and closer to solving one of this two burning mysteries. Along the way he makes the acquaintance of Bobbi, a beautiful singer at one of the clubs and the current "girlfriend" of one of the bad guys. But even dead, Jack knows how to show a lady a good time. More importantly, eventually he gets to remember every excruciating detail of his "death." "Bloodlist" certainly establishes the potential for this series, which as even Jack notices is more reminiscent of the Shadow than Dracula; the best parts of this book are when Jack uses his new powers to toy with the bad guys. Jack is a vampire, but since he feeds his blood lust at the Chicago Stockyards and is still trying to learn the ropes about being one of the undead he qualifies as being a "good" vampire. As a faithful sidekick, Escott is a unique combination of elements from a lot of literary ancestors, while Bobbi makes an interesting love interest for our hero simply because she does not bat an eye at Jack's unique approach to love making. The Vampire Files is clearly a series that is going to rest on the strength of the three main characters and she has certainly given herself something to build upon. Plus, there is that other mystery to solve as to how he ended up undead. The first novel is the weakest of the three, only because the film noir aspects are not as strong as the developing idea of vampires the first time around. In "Lifeblood" vampire hunters are after Jack, as "The Vampire Files" kicks into high gear. Nice guy vampire Jack Fleming is still getting used to being one of the undead, helping his friend Charles Escott with a few investigations and trying to build some sort of happy live with Bobbi Smythe. However, his "life" is suddenly facing a couple of major complications. First, a pair of fairly incompetent but nonetheless deadly vampire hunters are on his trai