Zombos Says: Excellent
The music oozing like toxic waste from inside is almost enough to turn me around and head me right back home. I brace myself against the toxicity and move past a line of pasty-looking undead wannabes. Every one of them is dressed in black. Up and down the line both guys and girls wear heavy black eye makeup, black lipstick and black nail polish. The androgynous nature of the look makes it difficult to tell the sexes apart. Maybe that's the point, but it makes me wonder exactly when people got the idea that in order to look like a vampire you had to adopt a transvestite-in-mourning look. (Mick Angel, on his visit to the Tomb Room Club)
"What are you looking at?" asks Zombos.
I find myself standing at one of the library windows. I don't know why. Wait, yes I do.
"Pretorius is having trouble with the snow blower again." I nod Zombos' attention down two-stories as he steps over to where I'm standing. We look out the window together.
"Where is he?" he asks.
I look harder. Pretorius is gone. The snow blower is idling, puffing up oily smoke. I shake my thoughts out one by one, grab onto the last image I remember. Oh, right, now I know. I point to the hand sticking up from the voluminous snow bank, its five fingers curling tightly–death grip, really–onto the snow blower's handle.
"Oh, dear Heaven's!" yells Zombos. He runs out of the library. I think about it, but decide he can handle the situation. I have a more pressing task to finish. I'm reviewing Trevor O. Munson's Angel of Vengeance.
I return to the desk I had meandered away from to continue my review. I check my notes: Mick Angel, vampire, private dick, sleeps in a freezer to slow his decay–check; old fashioned, wears a fedora hat and smokes (he's dead, doesn't care)–check; drives a snappy Mercedes Benz 300 SL Roadster (make a note, I think Zombos has one tucked away in third garage)–check; can see his reflection in a mirror, but it's detestable (that's why vampires don't like mirrors)–check; rumored to be the novel that inspired the more romantic Moonlight television series–check.
I kick my chair back and stretch. What else? What am I missing? A gnawing sense of noir nibbles on the gray matter between my ears. Like in a Philip Marlowe Clue mystery there's the game pieces: the scummy rich guy living in the mansion at Beechwood Canyon; a 14-year old missing girl; a stripper who hires Mick to find said missing girl; and a recalcitrant Leroy–pronounced Leh-roy, a drug dealer with a score to tally. What about Munson? Sure, he's just an author, but he kicks around the vampire legend like a Del Monte tomato can down a long alley, leaving some new wrinkles on its worn label.
That's it. I smile with satisfaction. Those new wrinkles. Sure, there's the Dame from the Past, the love-interest, the one-and-only forever more. She's gone yet always there, isn't she? In flashbacks, Coraline fills Mick's thoughts and ours. Thoughts about his drug addiction leading to her addiction. Thoughts on how he's turned into a creature of the night; one who mainlines his blood–old habits die hard, right?– but only takes it from bad guys he slurps dry, like one of those Go-Gurts.
Is Mick vampire-strong? Yes. But not too strong. Munson makes sure to keep Mick's blood habit a workable annoyance, not a twilight walk in the glen. It makes him vulnerable. Funny, too, how Mick hates using cell phones. When he needs to make a phone call he goes to Canter's Deli; even if the smells now nauseate him because of his heightened nasal sensitivity. Why? Memories of the past?
It's always about the past in these stories, isn't it? Vampire ones and hardboiled ones, I mean. Munson writes Mick's case in present-tense (except for the flashbacks, of course), but Mick's living in the past while he's breathing in the present. He won't let go until he's forced to. He's forced pretty hard in Angel of Vengeance. Even with his hypnotic powers he's in deeper than he expects and bullets still hurt, and sometimes you really do have to hurt the ones you love when the truth is gearing up to hurt you.
You know how some books you hopscotch through the paragraphs and some you read word by word? This is one you won't be hopscotching.
A courtesy copy for this review was provided by Titan Books