Dan (Unnatural Acts, 2012, etc.), who’ll clearly do anything for a laugh, seems to be having the time of his afterlife. The...
A serial scalper threatens to ignite a full-scale war between two bands of werewolves in Dan Chambeaux’s Unnatural Quarter. And there’s much, much more.
Now that Death Warmed Over, the first volume based on his adventures, has been published by the ghostwriter Linda Bullwer, aka Penny Dreadful, Dan ought to be one happy fella, since even posthumous fame is welcome to a zombie detective. But his brow is furrowed—or it would be, if undead brows furrowed—by problems in the Quarter. It’s clear that whoever shaved the pate of Rusty, the werewolf who runs cockatrice fights, has practiced on other werewolves, whether they’re Hairballs like Rusty, who remain always lycanthropes, or the Monthlies they’re feuding with, like troublemakers Scratch and Sniff, who turn wolf only under the full moon. When randy young vampire Ben Willard is murdered and his organs harvested, panic runs through the Quarter. A lesser shamus would forget his commitments to Archibald Victor, who wants Tony Cralo’s Spare Parts Emporium to replace the defective spleen and brain they sold him; to Steve Halsted, Dan’s dirt brother, whose ex-wife Rova, the world’s worst beautician, won’t let him visit his son because he’s a zombie and demands more child support even though he’s undead; and to Esther, the harpy waitress at Ghoul’s Diner who can’t get rid of a bad-luck charm a disgruntled wizard left her as a tip. Not Dan, who not only perseveres with each case, but manages to knit several of them together as neatly as witches Mavis and Alma Wannovich patch Dan’s diverse bullet holes after every round of his investigations.
Dan (Unnatural Acts, 2012, etc.), who’ll clearly do anything for a laugh, seems to be having the time of his afterlife. The result is like an early, funny Woody Allen film with zombies, ghosts, vampires and werewolves.Pub Date: April 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7738-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.
Things are about to get bloody for a group of Charleston housewives.
In 1988, the scariest thing in former nurse Patricia Campbell’s life is showing up to book club, since she hasn’t read the book. It’s hard to get any reading done between raising two kids, Blue and Korey, picking up after her husband, Carter, a psychiatrist, and taking care of her live-in mother-in-law, Miss Mary, who seems to have dementia. It doesn’t help that the books chosen by the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant are just plain boring. But when fellow book-club member Kitty gives Patricia a gloriously trashy true-crime novel, Patricia is instantly hooked, and soon she’s attending a very different kind of book club with Kitty and her friends Grace, Slick, and Maryellen. She has a full plate at home, but Patricia values her new friendships and still longs for a bit of excitement. When James Harris moves in down the street, the women are intrigued. Who is this handsome night owl, and why does Miss Mary insist that she knows him? A series of horrific events stretches Patricia’s nerves and her Southern civility to the breaking point. (A skin-crawling scene involving a horde of rats is a standout.) She just knows James is up to no good, but getting anyone to believe her is a Sisyphean feat. After all, she’s just a housewife. Hendrix juxtaposes the hypnotic mundanity of suburbia (which has a few dark underpinnings of its own) against an insidious evil that has taken root in Patricia’s insular neighborhood. It’s gratifying to see her grow from someone who apologizes for apologizing to a fiercely brave woman determined to do the right thing—hopefully with the help of her friends. Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls, 2018, etc.) cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he’s a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet.
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68369-143-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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