2016 modern fantasy novella, first in its series. There are vampires
in the world; the FBI is hunting down the bad ones.
This feels like the pilot episode of a TV series. Here's the
teaser with a bunch of expendable characters so that we can see how
dangerous the threat is; here's the brilliant young FBI agent, son of
the first female director, who's out to prove that he's good in his
own right; here's the "good" vampire who's the co-lead (cop/not-a-cop
yet again), and there are some of the rest of the ensemble cast.
Meanwhile, over there is the villain of the week, and the figure
behind her who'll escape to be the season's big bad, and the ending
that sets up the next episode. It feels very much by-the-numbers, the
sort of thing that usually emerges from TV production where multiple
layers of executives and focus groups can sand away anything
distinctive and produce a rounded-off pill for the audiences to
swallow; it's a shame to see a solo author following this path.
Which is all rather a pity, because apart from those problems the book
is well written and a pleasure to read; the characters do their best
to escape from the clichés they've had assigned to them, and
occasionally succeed. I wish Olson would do the same.
I can't really recommend this yet, but if the story goes somewhere a
bit more interesting in future volumes then it may pull together.
To be followed by Switchback.
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