A campy but robust vampire tale teeming with wit and otherworldly mystery.
A special agent must identify who among the vampires is purloining their steady supply of blood in this fourth installment of a supernatural series.
The purpose of Vampire Blood Supply is to provide vamps with blood that humans have voluntarily donated. Agent Samuel Johnson of Vampires Against the Evil is one of the Protectors who safeguard humanity from dangerous vamps, such as the Evil Ones, who prefer drinking blood straight from the human tap. VBS enlists Samuel’s help when blood donations wane and thefts—delivery-van hijackings—spike. The probable robbery suspect is Blood International, a delivery service looking to set up shop in central Iowa, where Samuel is stationed. BI’s real intent is to drive VBS out of business. But when Samuel trails carjackers for intelligence, he’s shocked to witness another group rob the culprits. Surmising that the second band comprises Evil Ones, he offers to help BI (which vaguely acknowledges that the sinister vampires are a “problem”) while covertly preventing the service from destroying VBS. In addition, he plans to unmask the spy inside VBS. The complex operation is quite the challenge for Samuel, as it involves infiltrating a secret BI facility and occasionally working alongside individuals he utterly despises, like the Evil Ones and stupid humans. Comedy, as in preceding series installments, is in abundance. For example, intermittent interviews (to pinpoint the VBS mole) are typically humorous, as with deliverywoman Patty Cline, who talks so incessantly that Samuel only manages a single question. But Carpenter (My Daze as a Vampire Hunter, 2017, etc.) augments the story with mystery, starting with the opening, in which people are pursuing Samuel through a maze of cornstalks. A corresponding bevy of characters, which the author deftly handles, will likely make the mole’s identity a surprise to many readers. Samuel’s casual narration, meanwhile, entails frequently addressing both the vampire and human audience. But his disdain for human readers eventually wears thin, implying, for one, that they can’t recall basic details of a VBS blood drive.
A campy but robust vampire tale teeming with wit and otherworldly mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72019-160-5
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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