INVESTIGATION, MEDIATION, VINDICATION

In this comedic, supernatural series starter, a San Diego private eye finds himself caught in the middle of a brewing war between mythical beings.

One day in 2013,private detective John Smith is attacked by humanoid crabs that he initially, and mistakenly, thinks are men in costume. Before the crab-men can kill him, a stranger named Anastasia Dumenyova comes to his rescue. She takes him to House Borghesi, a home for vampires who call themselves “the People.” Humans have long been unaware of the existence of such paranormal beings in their midst, which also include goblins and shape-shifters, among others. To avoid open warfare between certain species, these beings work with mediators. Evidently, John is the last mediator available in the area—except that he isn’t one, really; he just added “mediation” to his advertisement for the rhyme (reflected in the book’s title). Currently, Lord Beel-Kasan, the demigod of nightmares and terror, is accusing the House of stealing something. John is willing to mediate, as it’s preferable to being killed by one of the People. It’s soon apparent, however, that the theft may have been committed specifically to incite a war. Anastasia surmises that there’s a traitor in the House and secretly enlists John to dig into the matter, although Juliette, the vampire she suspects, points the finger right back at her. Tullbane, the author of The Storm in Her Smile (2020), presents a consistently amusing story. It effectively introduces a creature-laden world, but it concentrates mainly on the vampiric People. The action is minimal, however; John spends an inordinate amount of time in the House as the target of vampires’ body-shaming, for example. But both the action and the investigation pick up in the final act, and the appeal of certain characters, namely spiky-haired Juliette, surges. There are abundant pop-culture references, but the plot never relies upon them. Some enigmas are left at the end for sequels to explore, such as John’s inexplicable immunity to the People’s supernatural “compulsion.”

An entertaining tale that’s sure to leave readers anticipating the protagonist’s next misadventure.