> Some of the best current ones --- Tanya Huff's Vicki Nelson series, all with > "Blood" in the title, featuring Vicki Nelson, a medically-discharged homicide > cop turned P.I.; Mike Celluci, her former partner and still sometime lover; > and Henry Fitzroy, vampire, author of bodice-ripper romances, and natural son > of Henry VII. They are published mainly as dark fantasy but qualify equally as > detective stories. > > Susan Sizemore's "Laws of the Blood" series, featuring the Hunters: the > vampire cops who keep the other vampires in line, and their human Companions. > Pretty gory, more of a romance theme, but very good, focusing a lot on vampire > ethics and politics. > > Christine Feehan's "Carpathian" series are popular, as are the Anita Blake > tales by Laurell K. Hamilton, but those both seem to feature more erotica and > bloodshed than I care for so I haven't read them. > > tal > Another favorite vampire author of mine, although I admit that I don't get into that genre of fiction very often, is P.N. (Patricia Nead) Elrod. She has written several vampire series, but to my disappointment has problems finishing them before moving onto a new idea for a book. All of her books revolve around historical settings. Another interesting thing in most of her books is that she treats Vampirism like a virus. You have a very low chance, like 1 in 500,000 of a chance of becoming a vampire and it can lay dormant until you die which is when you find out "I'm not dead yet!" (visions of Monty Python....). In The Vampire Files series a P.I. in 1930s Chicago(I believe) attempting to solve crimes. A fairly solid set of books which on writing the message I find that she has renewed interest and is even now writing her 10th book for the series. I'll have to start reading it again since I haven't read these books since she left off at book four. The next series she wrote was the Jonathon Bartlett series. I actually preferred this one with it's setting in Revolutionary War America. It is written in the people's perspective where the yond landowner's son goes off to England to college and gets bitten by a "romantic interest" but doesn't find himself to be a vampire till he goes back home when the war starts. This is one of the sets that she "lost interest" in and stopped on book 4. An actual novel, she wrote Quincy Morris, Vampire fairly recently. This story takes a rough and tumble Texan, Quincy, and transforms the unwitting Western genre Texan with his trusty Bowie knife into an undead. While he tries to return to the life he once led with his friends he finds an obstacle in that the infamous Van Helsing has convinced them that the only good vampire is a dead vampire. An earlier novel is The Keeper of the King where a young Middle Ages warrior is fatally wounded in battle. To give him a chance to live she gives him a new chance at life... or unlife. She also gives him a meaning to his existence. To protect the King of England at all costs. However, when does this job really end? The book continues to the 1990s (present day for the book) where the yond man is still engaging in his duty. In collaboration with the vampire from the television show "Forever Knight" >from a few years back, Nigel Bennett, she combines in the book, His Father's Son. Here she takes Arthurian legend and combines it with her a vampire story. Richard (Sir Lancelot) is now a "Security Specialist" in present day Canada where he gets mixed up with some drug runners and a former lover of his who later is shot along with her daughters. He then goes on a spree of vengeance to take out the offending parties. I have also heard that she did a few books in the Ravenloft series but have had no interest in reading those. --- Charlie Smith --- "The adding of a single thread changes the garment." --- Jhereg, Ch. 16, pg. 143