Thursday, April 2, 2009

Deader Still by Anton Strout


Synopsis: It's been 737 days since the Department of Extraordinary Affairs' last vampire incursion, but that streak appears to have ended when a boat full of dead lawyers is found in the Hudson River. Using the power of psychometry-the ability to divine the history of an object by touching it-agent Simon Canderous discovers that the booze cruise was crashed by something that sucked all the blood out of the litigators. Now, his workday may never end-until his life does.

My Thoughts: Once again I was attracted to a book by its cover. I like Urban Fantasy and it has the look, it reminded me of a Jim Butcher book. I read the line above the title: "It's hard to defeat evil on a budget." It made me laugh so I bought it. Had I bothered to read farther (like the bottom of the book) or the back I would have discovered that this is the second in a series. At home I read the back and found that it starts out with a boat load of dead lawyers. What can I say? I always laugh at lawyer jokes..... The hero, Simon Canderous is a fun character with toungue firmly in cheek. He's your ordinary guy, sometimes insecure and jealous, impulsive, and relationship challenged.
I thought this book was some what unique in the urban fantasy genre. For example, it makes fun of how many forms Simon has to fill out over any incident. This book ends in a cliff hanger, Simon and his partner, Connor, are walking out of the department to search for Connor's missing brother. I'm looking forward to the third book and in the meantime I plan to get the first one and read it.

Visit the author's site here.

Challenges:
100+ Reading challenge
RYOB Challenge

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...it reminded me of a Jim Butcher book."

That's exactly what I thought!

Jo, a retired teacher said...

Thank you. It sounds like something I might like too. I think I'll see if the first one is available to download to Kindle--maybe it will even be cheap.

I do appreciate your reviews and comments.