It’s 1938 Chicago and the Lady Crymsyn nightclub has been named by local mob bosses as neutral territory, a situation its vampire owner wants to see continue. But rival gang members from New York have other ideas and when a mafia leader is shot outside his premises the vampire is pulled unwillingly into a gang turf war. At the same time a kidnapping case he was assisting his detective friend to solve turns ugly when the head kidnapper turns out to be a society swell with a lot of influential friends and a strong suspicion about the vampire’s true nature.
Delicate negotiations don’t seem to be able to head off violence from either source and the vampire with a thirst for justice as well as blood has his work cut out for him if he is to survive these trials and keep his friends safe at the same time.
Though one of a series this book stands alone, which is just as well since my library doesn’t have any of the other series works.
Written in the noir style, Elrod does a great job of bringing the 1930s to life. The hard-boiled detective standing alone against the injustices of the world worked well with a vampire hero. The plot was intricate without undue complexity and the characters truly three dimensional. Parts of this book were real page turners, which is why I find myself so very disappointed with the ending.
Neither situation is resolved by the end of the book. While I understand the author’s desire to end on a cliff hanger to set up the next book (I knew going in this was part of a series after all) I am disappointed that everything is left up in the air. Given that there were two main subplots it wouldn’t have hurt to tie up either one here so that the reader isn’t left without any payoff at all for the effort of reading the book. Fans of the series might be more forgiving but this methodology puts me off and now that I know she uses it I won’t be reading any more of Elrod’s work.-Lynn
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