Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Blood Debt-Tanya Huff

Blood Debt
Tanya Huff
DAW, Oct 7 2014, $15.95
ISBN: 9780756408503

Henry Fitzroy the vampire who saved former Toronto cop Vicki Nelson from certain death when he converted her.  He mentored her for a year in Vancouver before his fledgling left to be on her own in her hometown where her police partner and lover Metropolitan Toronto PD Detective-Sergeant Mike Celluci is ecstatic to have her back.

Henry asks Vicki to return to Vancouver to help him deal with a ghost who constantly is there when he awakens.  Accompanied by Mike, she goes to the Pacific Northwest.  Henry further explains that his restless spirit allows him to ask a yes or no question; if the response is positive the ghost leaves, but if not a scream in anguish occurs as if a chorus of the dead howls until a nearby hysterical mortal dies.  As the vampires reluctantly team up to end the ghost’s deadly torment, Mike and Henry’s human ward Tony Foster try to keep them from tearing into each other as vampires need distance.

This reprint of the mid 1990s fifth Vicky Nelson Blood urban fantasy is a thrilling “final” entry though the return of the triangle after a year of separation lacks the ardent intensity of the previous novels (see Blood Price, Blood Trail, Blood Lines and, Blood Pact).  The vamps act for much of the storyline as feral adversaries in a pissing contest with the two humans serving as the necker-checkers.  Still series fans will enjoy this tale wondering why an anguished ghost haunts a romance writing several centuries old vampire.

Harriet Klausner

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