Vamparazzi, by Laura Resnick
Book Review by Joshua Palmatier
Have you read this book?
This is the fourth book in Laura Resnick's Esther
Diamond series. It's a light-hearted, humorous, and fun
series about an actress in New York City who happens to run into various
paranormal situations and the books continue to improve. I think
switching up the type of paranormal activity that Esther encounters in
each book is keeping it fresh.
In this book, Esther is part of a play called The
Vampyre, playing a role opposite the lead who claims that he's
a real vampire who drinks blood between shows to stay energized. No
one takes him seriously until a fan, who attacked Esther after one of
the shows, turns up dead by exsanguination. Suddenly, everyone suspects
the lead actor, which Esther finds ridiculous. But all signs DO point
toward a real vampire attacking the hordes of rabid fans that Esther has
labeled vamparazzi . . . and Esther may be the vampire's next target.
As I said above, the books in this series have been getting much
better in terms of quality and tightness of plot and this book was no
exception. I think my favorite is still the second book
Dopplegangster, but this one comes in an extremely
close second. The plot was extremely well done, in particular, with the
events of the story happening over the course of a few days and nearly
all of it happening at or near the theater where the play was running.
The writing was fluid and moved at a brisk pace, making the reading easy
and enjoyable, and the humor was sly and perfect, making me quirk a
grin in numerous places.
But I think the best thing about the book was the characters, as
usual, and in particular how the relationship between Esther and
ex-almost-boyfriend cop Connor Lopez played out. This all happened over
the course of a few days, so there couldn't be major changes over that
time, but the relationship was still there and played up well
considering what happened in the previous book. It didn't shift that
far away from where we left it at the end of the previous book, but I
also don't think it could have shifted any further without breaking
credibility. Connor aside, all of the other characters were fun and
interesting, and I like that Max didn't play as huge a role as he has in
previous books, in terms of resolving the plot, although we do get a
significant glimpse of Max's past, which was interesting. In fact, a
few of Max's quirked are finally explained in this novel.
Overall, what I'm saying is that this book had a perfect balance of
plot, pacing, setting, and character. I think the only reason I liked
Dopplegangster more was because the concept was
fresher. This book dealt with vampires, which feel like they've been
done to death at this point, but Laura Resnick does her own spin on
these particular undead creatures that I found interesting, more
realistic, and far fresher than any recent urban fantasy vampire I've
read.
If you've never read anything in this series, pick up one of the
books. It doesn't have to be read in sequence, but I think once you've
read one, you'll want to read them all.
www.joshuapalmatier.com
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