Death Blows by DD Barant

I had the pleasure of meeting with Don Barant, otherwise known in the fantasy book world as DD Barant, at the recent fantasy-themed convention here in Vancouver Canada- FanExpo.  For a guy who writes vampire books, as well as often about werewolves and other dark denizens of the night (had to put a Batman phrase in there, just for Don) he is a person who is open and friendly when it comes to chatting at conventions about the world of fantasy and books in general.

One of things Don and I have in common is a love of the world of comic books. I got mine from working as a writer and publisher for over twenty years in that field and Don got his from reading and enjoying them. It shows in one of the books in his Bloodhound Files series, Death Blows. I am chortling as I read it this week and had to share with you some of the highlights of the book.

For those unfamiliar with the Don’s vampire books series, The Bloodhound Files is wonderful mix of mystery detective storytelling with lots of great fantasy images thrown in just for fun. In fact, Don writes in just about every genre you can name, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he decided to combine two of his favorite genres into one vampire books story.

The main character in this vampire books set is Jace, and she is a tough-ass FBI profiler who is pulled into an alternate world where humans are outnumbered by vampires (called pires) and werewolves (called thropes) by about 9-1. Ya, well, when they live forever and tend to chomp on humans, I guess that wouldn’t take too long to happen. In this world they have been around for a couple hundred years at least, so that tells you just how successful they have become.

Jace is here because they need her to help them out on a serial murder case. This one is special because the killer is human, and he is after vampires and werewolves. Oh- and he is crazy. The National Security Agency of the Unnatural States of America (ya- that is a mouthful!) keeps her here to help with her specialty, the tracking down of “mentally-fractured killers”. The original deal was she would help with this one case and then be sent back, but her ability to find the mentally unstable criminal, something that is almost unheard of here, keeps her firmly on this side of the universe.

Still on the trail, she is brought into the crime scene where a pire has been killed, in a superhero costume. Soon she is unraveling the clues left behind that all point to a comic book connection in a world where comic books were banned for their magic ability in the 1950s. Now this is where Don really shines, because he pulls out all the stops and brings in his knowledge of comic book history, his love of the medium and just a few comic book celebrities who make some fun guest appearances. He weaves in the comic book stuff without letting it detract from the flow of the story, as Jace is soon standing down thropes and trying to understand just exactly who this criminal mind could be that is so twisted he can leave a corpse in a Flash costume with an electrical current running through it that leaves very little of the body to investigate.

Of course, the bodies begin to pile up, and soon it becomes obvious that Jace has some decisions to make about her loyalties and how much she is willing to do to get back to her own world. I don’t want to say too much, I hate to give anything away, but let’s just say that some folks that appear to be allies turn out to be something very different.

But since this is a site about all things vampires and vampire books – let me tell you a bit more about “the pires” in this world. Don has done some interesting things to the concept of vampires here in his recent vampire books series, beginning with the notion that back in the 1940s in this alternate world, they traded a mass sacrifice of the humans for the ability to reproduce. This is what gives them their edge, and why humans are such a minority in this world, well that and the math I mentioned earlier.

So here they are the ones with all the power. Golems have been created to be the worker bees, and humans are such a small minority that they aren’t even worth considering in the scheme of things. I love that pires refer to humans without magical powers (which most humans have here, they had to just to survive) as ORs or “original recipe”, referring to the old habits of making them into blood snacks.

With humans down to that measly 1%, this leaves thropes (as in werewolves are lycanthropes) and pires the ones with the ability to make things happen, which they do. In fact, Jace’s boss at the National Security Agency (NSA) is a vampire by the name of David Cassius who is young, good looking and somehow reminds me of the old sixties heartthrob David Cassidy (but that is just a coincidence, right Don?)

All in all, The Bloodhound Files vampire books series is a fun and very different vampire books series for us vampire fans. One of things I really found amazing is how well Don writes from a female point of view. I have found this to be rare in most genre fiction and can usually spot a guy writing with a female main character a mile away. Not so with this series and in fact before I met Don I wasn’t sure if “DD” was a guy or gal.

If you have never dipped your toe into the vampire books series, you might want to begin with the first book, Dying Bites. This is where Jace first comes to this world and it introduces you to the pires and thropes that make up her world and her new case. Death Blows is the second book, and I will say that you don’t need to have read the first one to enjoy it. But heck, why limit yourself? And if you love these two, Killing Rocks and Better off Undead follow with Back from the Undead just released last month. All with those killer vampires, and the wry DD Barant humor that makes me keep coming back for more.