UPDATE! Chuck Wendig's MIRIAM BLACK SERIES

UPDATE!


I have just updated a previous post for Chuck Wendig with a review of the second book in his MIRIAM BLACK SERIES: Mockingbird.

Click on either the author's name or the book title above to go directly to the updated review.

UPDATE! Kevin Hearne's IRON DRUID CHRONICLES

UPDATE!

I have just updated a previous post for Kevin Hearne with a review of the fifth book in his IRON DRUID CHRONICLES:  Trapped.

  

Click on either the author's name or the book title above to go directly to the updated review.

Terry Spear: HEART OF THE JAGUAR SERIES

Author:  Terry Spear   
Series:  HEART OF THE JAGUAR SERIES   
Plot Type: Soul-Mate Romance (SMR)  
Ratings: Violence—4; Sensuality—4; Humor—2  
Publisher and Titles:  Sourcebooks
      1    Savage Hunger (10/2012)
      2    Jaguar Fever (8/2013)
      3    Jaguar Hunt (8/2014)

      4    Jaguar Pride (2/2015)
      5    A Very Jaguar Christmas (10/2016)

This post was updated on 9/22/17 to include the publisher's blurb for A Very Jaguar Christmas, the fifth novel in the series. An overview of the series world-building appears first, followed by the reviews and publisher's blurbs. Although I am no longer reviewing new books in this series, I will continue to post new titles and publisher's blurbs.

                         WORLD-BUILDING                         

     In this series, Terry Spear has shifted her story telling from werewolves to jaguar shifters. These jaguars are most comfortable in the hot and humid rain forests of the Amazon, where they can run free and feast on caiman, turtles, and other wild game. Each book tells the love story of one jaguar couple from first lust to HEA.

     In the same manner that she does in her WEREWOLF SERIES, Spear includes information here about jaguar biology and behavior. Jaguars are not the pack animals that wolves are. Instead, they are loners who live solitary lives (except for mothers and cubs), so these stories won't have the large and loyal social groups that we see in the WEREWOLF SERIES. Click HERE to read my review of Spear's WEREWOLF SERIES. 

     Christine Feehan has written a similar series, but with leopards instead of jaguars. The two animals are quite similar, but they live in widely separate areas. Jaguars are native to South America, while leopards are native to Asia and Africa. There are also a few physical differences between the two. Click HERE for an article that compares the two species. Click HERE to read my review of Christine Feehan's LEOPARD SERIES. Click HERE to read an interview with Terry Spear about her shifter romances.

                       NOVEL 1:  Savage Hunger                       

     The Prologue sets up the romance for this book: When U.S. Army Captain Kathleen ("Kat") McKnight's cover is blown while she is infiltrating a South American drug cartel deep in the Amazon rain forest, she is rescued by a mysterious man who seems to have been accompanied by a jaguar. He tells her that his name is Connor Anderson. When military troops eventually get to the scene, Connor slips away into the jungle and she never sees him again. Badly wounded—both physically and emotionally—Kat is transported back to the U.S. where she suffers from PTSD, thinks constantly about Connor, and dumps her fiancé. One year later, she heads back to that same rain forest on the pretense of saying "thank you" to Connor for saving her life. 

     Unfortunately, the improbabilities begin to pile up early in the book and don't stop until the very end. First, we are to believe that Kat goes off by herself through a thick, pathless jungle with only a sketchy idea of how to get to her destination. She starts off with a single guide, but he leaves her, promising that he will soon return. When he doesn't return, she just starts slogging through the jungle with absolutely no idea of where she is going. Soon, she is completely lost.

     Naturally (because this is a paranormal romance!) Kat runs into Connor, who happens to be in his jaguar form. Eventually, Connor and Maya (his sister) convince Kat to go with them to their crude hut a few miles away where Maya (on the spur of the moment) decides that she wants a sister and Connor needs a mate—so she scratches Kat and licks the open wound, thus turning Kat into a shape-shifting jaguar. Now, if Maya were a spoiled teenager, I might believe that she would do such a horrible thing. But Maya is an adult—a 30-year-old woman—and she never once stops to consider that Kat might have family, friends, or a lover whom she is looking forward to seeing as soon as she gets out of the jungle. Maya also never considers how Kat will react to the scratch or how she and Connor will get Kat safely out of the jungle after she becomes a newbie jaguar shifter. Here's how Maya thinks about the situation: "Maya had so badly wanted Kat to be Connor's mate that she hadn't considered all of the potential pitfalls. She was glad her brother didn't seem angry with her...He truly was interested in making Kat his mate, so how could he be too irritated with Maya when she had helped to make it happen?...Except now, they really did have a problem with getting Kat home safely without her shifting at the wrong time...But Maya was sure that she and Connor could come up with something that would get them through this situation intact...As for Kat, Maya was sure Kat would forgive her once she learned how advantageous being a shifter was and how wonderful having Connor as her mate would be. And Maya was not forgetting how Kat would have a sister all at once, too. Kat couldn't be unhappy about that." And here's Kat's take on what Maya did to her: "She didn't resent Maya for turning her. She wasn't sure why, but she really liked Maya. Maybe because she had never had a friend who would risk all to be there for her. Maya never put her down, never judged her." What makes this second quotation really disgusting is that in the Prologue, Kat's entire support team died trying to save her from the terrorists, yet she says here that Maya is her only "friend who would risk all to be there for her." Could these women be any more self-centered and vacuous?

     Maya comes across as a shallow, selfish, thoughtless brat, so I'm going to have a hard time seeing her as a heroine when it's her turn to hook up with her soul mate. To pile on even more improbability, Kat never chastises Maya for what she did (and really, neither does Connor). In fact, the two women actually do become instant "sisters," and, of course, Kat and Connor fall immediately in lust/love. All of this is mighty hard to swallow.

     Then there's the non-romantic part of the plot, which consists of the jaguar trio being chased around the jungle by the drug lord's minions, and always defeating them without suffering even a single scratch to their beautiful furry hides. There's also a mysterious male jaguar shifter stalking them and helping them out in their battles with the drug thugs. I'm guessing that he (his name is Wade Patterson) will turn out to be Maya's mate. Spear uses the third-person point of view, alternating among the three jaguar shifters, except near the end, when Wade is given a page or two. 

     I have to say that I'm surprised that this book is so far below the quality of Spear's WEREWOLF SERIES. The plot moves at a very slow pace with little suspense, and the characters are shallow and poorly developed. At the end, when Kat discovers exactly what was going on while she was floundering around in the jungle with her friends, I couldn't believe what I was reading. To imply that the U.S. Army would even consider—much less carry out—the dark and dishonorable things that Spear has them doing is shocking, to say the least. I'll give the next book a try, but I'm not feeling good about this series so far. To read an excerpt from Savage Hunger, click HERE to go to the book's Amazon.com page and then click on the cover art.

                         NOVEL 2:  Jaguar Fever                         

     The heroine of the second book is Maya Anderson, sister of the hero of book 1. If you've read book 1, you'll know that Maya is a thirty-something jaguar shifter with the emotional stability of a teen-ager. Unfortunately, she hasn't matured much since she and her brother left the rain forest behind and moved to Texas to open a nursery. Maya wants to meet some male shifters, but Connor has been over-protective and has kept her from doing much socializing. When Connor and his wife, Kat, leave for Belize a day and a half before Maya joins them, Maya decides to celebrate her independence by going alone to a disreputable shifter bar.

     Coincidentally, a pair of jaguar shifter twin brothers have that bar staked out. Wade and David Patterson are members of the Service, a "special government, a body that was started years ago to police jaguar shifters and attempt to protect our jaguar cousins who don't shape-shift." The Service has four branches: Enforcers, Guardians, Avengers, and Special Forces (aka the Golden Claw JAG). The Pattersons are Golden Claw agents. The brothers' current assignment is to bring down a gang of smugglers who are capturing wild jaguars in Belize and selling them to buyers who own vast ranges of land that they use for "hunts." They sell hunting passes to wealthy "hunters" who are allowed to kill the jaguars after tracking them on their ATVs. 

     Wade and Maya have a history that goes back to book 1. In that adventure, Wade protected and aided Connor, Kat, and Maya after they were attacked by drug dealers in the Amazon rain forest. Although Maya has seen Wade in his jaguar form, she has never seen him as a human. As soon as she meets him in the bar, though, she recognizes his scent and the two fall headlong in lust.

     The plot follows the usual two paths: the romance and the related action conflict. The romantic path to HEA is not too rough, although there are a few incidents in which each lover must rescue the other from life-threatening situations. Maya continues her immature behavior pattern as she takes one thoughtless risk after another, just as she did in book 1. The action part of the story concerns the jaguar smugglers—humans who are aided by a pair of traitorous jaguar shifter brothers. The adventure moves from Texas to Belize and back to Texas as the good guys strive to defeat the bad guys without getting themselves killed.

     Once again, the story telling in this book is weak and flat—nothing like Spear's top-notch WOLF SHIFTERS series. The good guys never seem to have much of a plan, and Maya just isn't a very interesting or engaging heroine. One of her hare-brained schemes takes place late in the story when she decides to pretend that she is furious with Wade so that he can dance with a woman who has some information. The mature, intelligent thing to do would be to plan this strategy ahead of time with Wade and David, but no, she just goes ahead with it, leaving the brothers shocked and puzzled over her strange actions. Maya also gets left alone a lot when her brother or the Pattersons or her cousins don't show up on time or have to take care of a major problem, etc. Each time that happens, readers can correctly take this as a cue that Maya will soon be getting herself into some kind of a jam. A trio of long-lost cousins is introduced into the plot early on—two brothers and a sister. Unfortunately, they are pretty much superfluous to the plot, only helping out once and then having traffic problems (or airline problems) that keep them out of the real action. I'm guessing that these folks will become the stars of future books, and that is the only reason for their introduction here.

     The book contains several continuity problems that should have been caught in the editing. For example, on p. 836, Maya brings Connor up to date on her adventures at the club with the Pattersons, but she explicitly states that she doesn't tell Connor about the brawl she caused among the unmated male shifters. Then, a few pages later, Connor knows all about the brawl, which should not be possible because they have not had another conversation since she decided not to tell him about it. Later in the story, Connor again possesses information that he shouldn't have, information about a human woman at the club who claims to know something about the smugglers—information Connor claims to have gotten from David. Since Connor hasn't had more than a passing conversation with David when he went to pick up some keys, how could Connor know these nitty-gritty details? I'll probably read the next book in the series, but at this point my expectations are not very high. To read an excerpt from Jaguar Fever, click HERE to go to the book's Amazon.com page and then click on the cover art.  

                         NOVEL 3:  Jaguar Hunt                          

     This book follows the same pattern as the previous two novels: a rapidly developing, idealized romance woven through scenes of frenetic, disjointed action that move back and forth between Dallas, Texas, and Belize. This time around, the lovers are David Patterson (brother of Wade, hero of book 2) and Tammy Anderson (cousin of siblings, Connor and Maya, lead lovers of books 1 and 2). David is a JAG agent and Tammy is a feline Enforcer. In book 2, we met Tammy and learned that she is searching for a jaguar (a real one—not a shifter) that was stolen from an Oregon zoo. As this book opens, David is assigned to be her partner on the case.

     The love story builds fast and runs smoothly for the most part. David is the very model of a perfect partner/mate/boyfriend/whatever: kind, intelligent, understanding, patient, and terrific in the bedroom (or in a jungle pool). Tammy is the typical feisty, snarky UF heroine we've seen so many times before. Their partnership begins when David overhears a conversation between a pair of jaguar-shifter teenage twin brothers who seem to know where the missing jaguar is being hidden. Almost immediately, everyone heads for Belize, and that's where the plot descends into muddled confusion.

     This story has enough red herrings to fill an ocean. The twins claim that some of the JAG agents are dirty, but they don't know which ones. Are the twins telling the truth? The whole truth? Various JAG agents keep turning up in Belize for unknown purposes. Which of them can be trusted? Then another set of twins enters the story. Are they friends or suspects? Then a circus gets involved. Is the circus the true owner of the jaguar, or did the circus steal the animal from the zoo—or from someone else? Between multiple affairs, one studly, womanizing suspect jumps from being an ex-JAG agent (fired) to a circus manager (fired again) to a bouncer at a shifter nightclub. And just when you begin to think you've figured out what's going on, things get really freaky because it seems that the hero and heroine have had affairs with the suspects. So…two sets of twins, various JAG agents behaving weirdly, shots fired, zip-line cable tampered with, hotel rooms ransacked, and too many ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends to count. The hero and one of the villains have actually dated many of the same women, including the heroine. Ewww…it feels incestuous. Really, after awhile, I was just flipping through the pages, hoping it would end. The resolution comes very near the end (p. 309) when one of the characters stops the action and sums everything up in a paragraph or two—what a relief that was.

     Not only is the plot jam-packed with misleading characters and situations, it is also pitted with many, many holes. For example, David and Tammy get perfect cell phone reception in Belize, right up until the moment that they need to make an urgent call to their bosses. Then, no signal. Another example: David suddenly gains access to all the evidence they need to solve the case (and how he happens to have this access is completely implausible). Then, one major piece of evidence is a pile of receipts for sales of stolen merchandise. What kind of crook keeps sales receipts for things that he steals and then sells illegally? I am so disappointed in this series because I enjoyed Spear's wolf series, and this one pales in comparison. To read an excerpt from Jaguar Hunt, click HERE to go to the book's Amazon.com page and then click on the cover art.  

                         NOVEL 4:  Jaguar Pride                        

     Once again a pair of JAG agents sweats through 300+ pages as they chase after big-game poachers in the rain forests of Costa Rica and fall in love along the way. This time the lovers/partners are Huntley Anderson (brother of Tammy from book 3) and Melissa Overton. They have completed three missions together and find that they make a great team. At the very beginning of the story, their romance hasn't yet blossomed because both are dating other people. After each one has a break-up (very early in the book), the friendship/lust/love cycle begins. Unfortunately, the dialogue between the lovers is so stilted and awkward that it's hard to find any real spark between them until they hit the sheets and no words are necessary.

     As usual, the plot is a swirl of scenes in which Melissa and Huntley (always "Huntley," never "Hunt") sneak around the tropical forest tracking down the poachers, avoiding snakes and crocodiles, rescuing animals, and getting shot at—and sometimes hit by—tranquilizer darts and bullets. Spear seems to be stuck in a "twins" rut. She had two sets of twins in the previous book, and now she has two more sets in this one. When Melissa and Huntley rescue a pair of jaguar female cubs, they get stuck with babysitting the little ones while other JAG members send in a covert plane to rescue the babies. While they are holed up in their cabana with the cubs, the partners fall hard for each other and make their new relationship official. (The second pair of twin cubs—also rescued by Melissa and Huntley—are barely incidental to the plot.)

     Once the cubs are safely on their way to the U.S., Melissa and Huntley join up with some other agents and go off to rescue the cubs' parents, who have been captured by the primary villain. The rest of the story involves the partners' allowing themselves to be captured so that they can find the parents and then take down the poachers. Even though they are frequently in the isolated depths of the rain forest, they never lose their cell phone signal—highly improbable—so they are always in contact with Martin, their JAG boss, who never fails to bail them out of various dangerous predicaments.

     This is another formulaic, predictable story that isn't significantly different in structure from the previous books: Two good-looking, ready-for-romance shifters fall in love, hunt down bad guys, risk their lives for others, and go off into an HEA future. Melissa has some last-minute doubts about her readiness for romantic commitment, but she gets over it very quickly so that the book can head toward its happy ending. By the way, "Huntley" has to be the worst shifter-hero name ever—sounds like a stuffy English lord, not a sexy jaguar. To read an excerpt from Jaguar Pride, click HERE to go to the book's Amazon.com page and then click on the cover art.

                     NOVEL 5: A Very Jaguar Christmas                     
PUBLISHER'S BLURB: 
     There are all kinds of surprises under the mistletoe!

     As a protector of all jaguar-kind, Guardian agent Demetria MacFarlane isn't surprised to get a call near Christmas-but when she's sent to protect a cub whose species she didn't even know existed, her holiday season gets complicated. And it doesn't help that her partner is a distraction of the hottest kind.

     Hotshot JAG agent Everett Anderson can handle dangerous poachers and wildlife traffickers, no problem...but kids? Everett fears he'll be stuck cub-sitting under the Christmas tree, but working with one sexy Guardian she-cat may be the best present he's ever gotten.

UPDATE! Sandra Hill's DEADLY ANGELS SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated a previous post for Sandra Hill with a review of the second book in her DEADLY ANGELS SERIES:  Kiss of Surrender. 

Click on either the author's name or the book title above to go directly to the updated review.

Kevin J. Anderson: DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE P.I. SERIES

Author:  Kevin J. Anderson   
Series:  DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE P.I.   
Plot Type:  Light Urban Fantasy (UF)   
Ratings:  Violence—4; Sensuality—2; Humor—3-4
Publisher and Titles:  Kensington
          Death Warmed Over (9/2012)
          "Stakeout at the Vampire Circus" (e-novella, 10/2012)
          Unnatural Acts (1/2013)

          "Road Kill" (e-short story, 4/2013)
          Hair Raising (4/2013)
          "Naughty and Nice" (e-novella, 10/2013)

          Slimy Underbelly (8/2014)  

     This post was revised and updated on 9/24/14 to include a review of Slimy Underbelly, the fourth novel. That review appears first, followed by an overview of the world-building and reviews of all of the preceding novels, novellas, and short stories.  

             NOVEL 4:  Slimy Underbelly              

     With the action centered on the the Unnatural Quarter's sewage tunnels and their malodorous contents, this novel certainly lives up to its title. Following the usual pattern, Dan Chambeaux (aka Dan Shamble) has several seemingly separate cases to investigate, all but one eventually coming together in the big showdown scene at the end. This time around, his clients include the following:  

   > Stentor: an ogre opera singer whose voice has been stolen—His name is Stentor because his voice is stentorian.

   > Jody Caligari: a teenage junior mad scientist whose landlord has stolen his inventions—Jody claims to be "Dr. Darkness!!!—with three exclamation marks. Or I will be, as soon as I finish my homework." His goal is to become a rich and powerful supervillain (because girls like bad boys), but, as he explains, "I wouldn't have to be an evil supervillain."

   > Richard Thudner: He is running against Alastair Cumulus the Third in an election that will determine the next leader of the Weather Wizards Fraternal Order (WWFO)—Their underhanded campaign tricks result in some strange weather phenomena in the Quarter. Richard calls himself Thunder Dick, so—predictably—we must suffer through a series of lame "Dick" jokes. 

THE VILLAINS: These cases pit Dan and his team against a diverse group of villains, with additional bad guys being added when Officer McGoohan asks for Dan's help with a few criminal cases. Here is a list of the villains:

   > Mr. Bignome and his dangerous gang of thieving garden gnomes: Bignome's minions carry miniature tommy guns so small that they are called timmy guns.

Lovecraft's Ctulhu

Ah'Chulhu (imagine
 gray skin and a white 
porcelain throne 
instead of a chair)

   > Ah'Chulhu (Gesundheit!): a tentacle-faced, sharply dressed demon who is building a kingdom in the sewers below the Quarter—He sits atop a huge porcelain throne and speaks with an Australian accent because "I'm from down under." If you haven't figured it out yet, Ah'Chulhu is a spoof of H. P. Lovecraft's Ctulhu, an evil hybrid monster who is part part man, part dragon, and part octopus.  

   > Ah'Chulhu's sharp-toothed gang of gator guys who are intimidating local business owners—Yes…all of those urban myths about alligators in the sewers are true! 

     In the background, Anderson lampoons the inaccuracy of Ken-doll TV weather forecasters and the mindless paperwork of government bureaucracies. He also begins a sub-plot involving Officer McGoohan's ex-wife, Rhonda, who is demanding child support for a daughter born just about the time their marriage broke up. Since Dan briefly dated Rhonda right after McGoohan's divorce, I'm guessing that there will probably be some DNA testing for both men in the near future.

     Unfortunately, just as in the previous novel, much of the "humor" is as slimy as the book's title. Unfortunately, Anderson's efforts here just aren't funny or even very entertaining. Since much of the plot focuses on the (un)sanitary sewer system, we have plenty of stinky situations like this one: "The tunnels beneath the streets of the Quarter roiled and gurgled and resulted in citywide incontinence…Pipes thumped, gurgled, and regurgitated smelly brown effluent in runny staccato spurts."  (p. 78) I admit that the "citywide incontinence" line is pretty funny, but it is the single high point in a swampy slew of attempts that are about as funny as a trough full of noxious waste.

     As usual, there are lots of pop cultural references in characters' names and in some of the situational comedy scenes, some that work and more that don't.  All in all, I have to say that this book is even weaker than the last: too many weird, one-note characters; too many repetitiously ridiculous (rather than entertainingly wacky) plot lines; too many excremental sewer scenes; and a complete absence of character development. Click HERE to go to this book's amazon.com page to read an excerpt. Just click on the cover art at the top of that page.

    This book also contains a full-text bonus novella: "Stakeout at the Vampire Circus" (book 1.5 in this series), which is reviewed below (after the World-Building section and the review of book 1).

             WORLD-BUILDING             

     In this zombie-spoof series set in an alternate New Orleans, life has changed drastically since the Big Uneasy occurred ten years ago. Here's what happened: "The original copy of the Necronomicon had inadvertently been left out under the light of a full moon, and a virgin woman...had cut her finger...and spilled blood on the pages—which activated some buried spell and caused a fundamental shift in the natural order of things, unleashing ghosts and goblins, vampires and werewolves, zombies, ghouls, and all manner of monsters. Even the previously existing ones had come out of the closet. The Big Uneasy...the world had been dealing with the repercussions ever since." (Death Warmed Over, p. 153)

     Instead of the French Quarter, natural (human) tourists in New Orleans stream into the Unnatural Quarter to get a look at the bizarre community of supernatural beings who live there. In this world, one in 75 dead people returns as a zombie, while one in 30 returns as a ghost. For unknown reasons, murder and suicide victims are more likely to return than those who die of natural or accidental causes.

     After the Big Uneasy, new laws and regulations had to be put in place to handle a multitude of exigencies. For example,"New rules required quick-release latches on the insides of tombs..., so the undead can conveniently get back out. Some people were even buried with their cell phones, though I doubted they'd get good service from inside. Can you hear me now?" (Death Warmed Over, p. 5) New products were developed specifically for unnatural customers, including seasonings that make chicken "taste just like  human," cosmetics to brighten up zombie-gray or vampire-pale skin, and deodorants to mask zombie-rot body odors.  

     The series hero, Dan Chambeaux, was a human private investigator in New Orleans for a long time, but now he's a newbie zombie, having been shot in the head in a dark alley just a month ago. As the series opens, his own murder is at the top of his case list, closely followed by that of his girlfriend, Sheyenne, who returned from her death (by toadstool poisoning) as a ghost—specifically, a poltergeist. Poltergeists can touch physical objects, but not people, so Sheyenne can hold down her job as Dan's assistant, but she can't touch Dan, which has put a serious damper on their love life. Dan laments that "Sheyenne is beautiful, blond, and intangible." ("Stakeout at the Zombie Circus") 

     Dan has always been self confidant in a naively arrogant sort of way, and death and zombification haven't changed that aspect of his personality: "Even undead, I remain as handsome as ever, with the exception of the [two] holes left by the bullet....Fortunately, a low-slouched fedora covers the big hole." (Death Warmed Over, p. 3) Dan has never acquired a taste for brains, and he's very careful about his personal hygiene, which can be a major problem for most zombies. Since Dan became a zombie, people have begun calling him "Shamble" instead of "Chambeaux." In fact, his business—Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations—has been nicknamed "Shamble & Die." Dan's partner is Robin Deyer, a young, soft-hearted, human attorney who is determined to provide justice to all unnaturals. Both of the partners are workaholics, with Dan's long-time mantra being "The cases don't solve themselves." 

     Dan's BHF (Best Human Friend) is Officer Toby McGoohan, the beat cop for the Unnatural Quarter. McGoohan's defining characteristic is his constant telling of really bad, non-PC jokes about unnaturals. For example, "What goes 'Ha-ha-ha...plop?'...A shambler laughing his head off." (p. 30)

              NOVEL 1:  Death Warmed Over             

     The series opener is put together like an overlapping set of sit-com episodes as Dan moves from one oddball case to the next. In this book, his clients include a skittish vampire interior decorator who is being harassed by local humans-first activists who call themselves Straight Edge; a middle-aged werewolf "cougar" whose wealthy husband is trying to get their pre-nup invalidated because of her newly furry state; a pair of witch siblings who are suing a book publisher because a typo in a spell book resulted in one sister's turning into a pig; a kindly humanitarian whose street mission has been badly vandalized by a mysterious unnatural monster; a mischievous ghost who is harassing his niece's family; and an Egyptian mummy who wants emancipation from his "servitude" to the local art museum, which claims to own him. Then, there's Dan's ongoing feud with the owner and the chief scientist/sales rep for Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals, who still hold a grudge against Dan for infiltrating their manufacturing facility a year or so ago and proving that they were putting garlic in vampire hair products, which resulted in an expensive court case and a huge fine. And don't forget that Dan's still trying to find his and Sheyenne's murderers. Each dispute is solved—one way or another—but only one (which has connections to a few of the others) turns into the main story line. All of these cases (which "don't solve themselves") mean that Dan moves from one case-specific scene to another in quick succession. That makes the story line humorously cluttered, but not really complicated.

     Anderson concocts a humorous description and back-story for each quirky character. For example, Sheldon Fennerman, the vampire decorator, "looked like the illegitimate love child of a bunny and a hamster, but without the fur."  (p. 19) Sheldon was a vegan before his transformation, and now drinks only soy blood. He's also quite fond of best-seller book clubs, bridge, cribbage, French-themed potlucks, and fondue. Sheldon's idea of interior decoration is burnt-orange shag carpet, Mediterranean-style furniture, and that kitten poster from the 1970s. 

     Although the plot has a few rough spots and at least one continuity issue (regarding the time line involving the beginning of Robin and Dan's partnership and their solving of the vampire-garlic case), this is an entertaining book that shambles along with lots of noir humor, a profusion of eccentric characters, and just enough violence to make it suspenseful. This is light-hearted urban fantasy at its best.  

     I listened to several chapters of the audiobook, and Phil Gigante does a great job with the various voices. He's got them all down perfectly, especially Dan's New Orleans drawl, Sheyenne's sexy purr, and Sheldon's petulant whine.

          E-BOOK 1.5:  "Stakeout at the Vampire Circus"  (Novella)         

     In this brief novella, Dan and Sheyenne visit a traveling circus for professional reasons (another one of those cases that don't solve themselves). The transvestite fortune teller has hired Dan to find out who has stolen two packs of fortune-telling cards. Dan soon discovers that the circus has been hit by a series of petty thefts, and the ringmaster/owner hires Dan to solve the whole mess.  

     This is a throw-away story that doesn't hold a candle to the characterization and drama of the first novel in the series, but I guess that if you'd like to get a taste of Dan Shamble's world you could get it from reading this little tale. Part of the problem is the brevity, because there's no room for the wealth of weird details, odd back-stories, and suspenseful danger in the short novella format. That leaves the reader with the bare bones of a fairly silly plot in which the identity of the light-weight villains is telegraphed early on and the "climax" is more of a sigh.            

             NOVEL 2:  Unnatural Acts             

     The story lines of this book are set up just as they were in book 1. In the early chapters, a number of colorful unnaturals hire Dan and Robin to handle various legal and investigational business while in the background two larger plot lines simmer on the back burner. Eventually, some of the thinner story lines are resolved, while others melt into the major plot lines and explode into climactic resolution near the end of the book.

     This time, the early cases involve a necromancer who is oppressing a large group of golems in his workplace, an arson investigation at the Shakespearean Theater in Greenlawn Cemetery, a ghostly bank robber who wants to maintain his image, hate-crime vandalism at the Full Moon brothel, the retrieval of a zombie's heart and soul, and two civil rights cases involving property ownership by unnaturals. The first of the larger plot lines centers on the Smile Syndicate, an evil corporation that is buying up businesses and land in the unnatural Quarter and turning it into kitschy tourist attractions. The second major plot line that runs throughout the story is the threat of Senator Rupert Balfour's Unnatural Acts Act, which would restrict nearly every aspect of existence for the unnatural population and take away most of their already scarce civil rights. The villains represent the two major themes of this book: the damage that giant corporations do to independent businesses and to the people who depend on them and the infringement on individual rights that comes when a group with power uses that power to persecute a minority group.

     The kindly Mrs. Saldana turns up once again in her role as head of the Hope & Salvation Mission in the Unnatural Quarter. Dan and Robin provide legal assistance to Mrs. Saldana as she finds a benefactor in the philanthropist, Irwyn Goodfellow, and needs help in setting up a foundation and organizing the MLDW (Monster Legal Defense Workers). 

     We follow Dan as he works the cases. (Remember Dan's motto, "The cases don't solve themselves.") As always, he is aided by his BHF (Best Human Friend), Officer Toby McGoohan; his partner, Robin Deyer; and his ghostly girlfriend, Sheyenne. Sheyenne has her own troubles to deal with when her long-estranged, con-man brother, Travis, turns up and causes major trouble for everyone.

     Each case involves colorful, quirky characters—both human and unnatural. Even the witchy Wannovich sisters, Alma and Mavis, play a part in the controlled chaos that is Dan's life. They plan to write a series of pulp-fiction books based on Dan's cases, and they want him to help—not to mention that Alma still has a major crush on Dan—too bad that she's still stuck in pig form (due to a spell gone wrong in book 1). 

     This continues to be an entertaining series, with lots of oddball characters, weird cases, and malicious villains. It's paranormal noir fiction lite.

             E-BOOK 2.5:  "Road Kill" (Short Story)            

     This e-short story is perfect for a new reader of the series because it is heavy with background information, filling the reader in on Dan and his friends and their lives in New Orleans' Unnatural Quarter. The skimpy plot involves a case requiring Dan to act as a decoy for a man who is going into witness protection. Dan's friend, Officer McGoohan, hires Dan and his partner to get Sebastian Bund safely to a secret location, but it all goes wrong, and Dan is right in the middle of the mess (as usual). There are some moderately funny lines, the best of which is this one: "I pounded the wooden lid with my fists. Yes, it's a cliché: I had become one of those things that go bump in the night."

     For the regular readers of the series, this one is probably a nonessential purchase (even though it costs only 99¢). Road Kill is definitely a short story—not even a novella. Don't be fooled by amazon's estimate of 49 pages because half of those pages are dedicated to blurbs for all of Anderson's other books and series. The actual story runs from locations 61 to 348; the blurbs go from locations 352-706—about 20% longer than the story itself. Anderson includes an introductory section called "Introducing Dan Shamble, Zombie PI" (locations 24-56), and that's great for a new reader, but of little interest to anyone else.

     Click HERE to go to Road Kill's amazon.com page with its "Look Inside" book cover. Just click on the cover to read the Introduction and several pages of the story.

             NOVEL 3:  Hair Raising             

     Once again, Dan Chambeaux (aka Dan Shamble) takes on (and solves) a few cases, and once again he finds that, in the final analysis, most of those cases are connected. Here's the rundown: Werewolves are being dart-drugged and scalped. A model-builder has a complaint about the human body parts he ordered from a spare-parts supplier. Full-time and part-time werewolves are on the brink of an intraspecies war. A zombie pays for a cremation that never happens. Unnaturals are disappearing from the streets of the Unnatural Quarter without a trace. A harpy wants to get rid of a bad-luck charm. A zombie is sued for child support but is denied visitation rights. Meanwhile, Dan discovers how it feels to be famous when the first Dan Shamble mystery novel is published, and swarms of his fans mob him at the Worldwide Horror Convention, which is being held in the Unnatural Quarter. 

      Dan's clients aren't nearly as funny as the ones in the previous two novels. In fact, several of them are unlikable, unhinged, and unsociable. The humor is also different—mostly based on bathroom humor of the lowest kind (e.g., noxious farts in a hot tub; splattering monster excrement; a demonic beauty shop patron covered entirely with pubic hair—with its accompanying odor; a werewolf lecture about bodily functions—including bowel movements). I mean, really, this stuff is gross, and completely lacking in humor. When reading these scenes, you're more likely to react with a grimace than a grin. Even Officer McGoohan's awful jokes fall flat in this book, whereas in books 1 and 2, they were worth at least a snicker.

     The requisite climactic battle that pulls everything together has a hairy deus ex machina and several improbable coincidences that weaken the ending of the book. You'll figure out the connections among the cases and the identities of most of the villains almost immediately, so there's no real build-up of suspense.

     Although Dan and his friends are always fun to watch, this is definitely the weakest of the books and the most formulaic. Anderson should consider skipping the fecal gags (and I mean "gag" in the most literal sense) and returning to the quirky, but much more amusing, characters and situations that he featured in books 1 and 2. After all, this is supposed to be a spoof of the ubiquitous zombie fiction now flooding the market, and, by definition, spoofs are supposed to be funny.  

             E-BOOK 3.5:  "Naughty and Nice" (Novella)            

     Dan Chambeaux (aka Dan Shamble) is somewhat surprised when Santa Claus knocks on his door, but Santa is, after all, an unnatural, so why not? This year, Santa has a major problem—someone has stolen his naughty-and-nice list so he doesn't know which kids deserve coal and which deserve gifts. Dan, Robin, and Sheyenne immediately begin to investigate and soon find a likely suspect: an elvin Santa wannabe who rides around the Unnatural Quarter on an elaborated, motorized sleigh while decked out in a rhinestone-studded Santa suit and blue suede shoes.

     Meanwhile, Dan's BHF (best human friend), Officer Toby McGoohan, also has a problem. Children are going missing all over the Unnatural Quarter, mostly street hooligans with juvie records. Are the two cases connected? Well, let's just say that that's the pattern in every other book in the series.

     Although this story has a faint whiff of Dickensian grittiness, it is as short and straightforward as one of Santa's chimney drops. If you are nuts about Dan Shambles and crew, you'll probably enjoy this fluffy bit of holiday magic.