There’s a rogue master vampire in town – and he’s eating people with his vampire followers and casually dumping his kills publicly. He’s killing a new human victim every night – and Anita has to find out who he is before the kill count gets too high, a task that’s even more difficult since there’s only supposed to be 2 master vampires in the city.
And it’s only complicated further by those victims rising as Revenants – animalistic vampires driven by hunger and immune to pain
Anita also has some new clients – members of Humans First who want her to tell her the identity of the Master of the City and his resting place. Though they’re not much happier dealing with her, either. She also has a visitor – Edward, the only vampire hunter more deadly than she is – and he wants the identity of the Master of the City as well. There’s also an ancient vampire comes into town also hunting Jean-Claude, followed by a vampire as old as time itself – also seeking out the Master of the City
Jean-Claude is on a whole lot of people’s hit list. Of course, as he takes the opportunity to bind Anita even close to becoming his human servant, even Anita starts to want Jean-Claude dead – and finally wants it enough to do something about it
Despite her busy schedule Anita also struggles to find time for a fledgling relationship with Richard – a highschool teacher of all things – and to train Larry, a new Animator. Unfortunately, she’s also dragged into Jean-Claude’s vampire politics – and the plotting of Master Vampires is never simple.
The story in this book is excellent, we have twist followed by twist followed by twist, it weaves into the side plots well and we have many clues and avenues of investigation – and then ends by turning it all on its head. Anita has to change her views and decisions as new revelations appear and it’s certainly not as simple as it first appears. All in all, it’s a mystery I like and appreciate – not a simple line but not ridiculously convoluted either
I do like the side plots in this book. Anita isn’t just working for the police, or up to her eyeballs in vampires – she does have some kind of life. She has her work outs with Ronnie, she has zombies to raise, she has Larry to train, there’s issues with Griswald falling into Jean-Claude’s hands, fighting the revenant in the vault. Sure, her work does tend to encroach in all of these areas – she is, after all, a workaholic with a hero complex who doesn’t want to see more of the bad guys victims (something that’s pretty clearly indicated in the books) but she does have activity outside of the main plot. And this serves to expand the world – especially in relation to what an Animator is and what it does (as well as where Anita’s income comes from. It’s pretty creative how many uses for the zombies there are and how that works as Anita’s bread and butter. I especially like it since so many Urban Fantasy protagonists either don’t work or have a job that directly parallels their investigation that it’s nice and unique to see a protagonist who has to argue to get time off to fight the vampires.
The side plots also allow the meta to continue and the ongoing themes to be developed – Anita’s job doesn’t stop because x drama has happened, Jean Claude doesn’t stop wanting Anita to be a human servant because Y is happening – issues from earlier books don’t just disappear.
I really like the writing style of this book and series for that matter. The internal monologue can be very funny is definitely amusing most of the time and helps explain most of Anita’s decisions – and generally makes them understandable and reasonable. I don’t think she’d be accuse of Spunky Agency without the monologue, but it does help dispel any possibility of it because her reasoning is sound.
