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13 Bullets: A Vampire Tale (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 2,053 ratings · 235 reviews

All the official reports say they are dead-extinct since the late ’80s, when a fed named Arkeley nailed the last vampire in a fight that nearly killed him. But the evidence proves otherwise.

When a state trooper named Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment-who else? He’s been expecting such a call to come even...more

ebook, 311 pages

Published May 22nd 2007 by Broadway (first published January 1st 2007)

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May 13, 2013 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Hummm, well this was a pretty good book. It's violent, gross, bloody and so on. Still a pretty good plot.

As is common now in many if not most vampire books/stories we get a "new" take on vamps that doesn't stick with the traditional or Stoker-esque model of vamps. These are more like the younger vamps in Storker's model, but with the strength and often the cunning of the older vamps. These are not the sweet, kind, romantic vamps. There's no overt sex appeal here. Neither do we exactly have the s...more Hummm, well this was a pretty good book. It's violent, gross, bloody and so on. Still a pretty good plot.

As is common now in many if not most vampire books/stories we get a "new" take on vamps that doesn't stick with the traditional or Stoker-esque model of vamps. These are more like the younger vamps in Storker's model, but with the strength and often the cunning of the older vamps. These are not the sweet, kind, romantic vamps. There's no overt sex appeal here. Neither do we exactly have the same way of "conversion" to vampirism.

These vamps will rip you apart, suck out every ounce of blood from every blood vessel, leave you in pieces and then hide your body. Later they'll "call" and you'll apparently reassemble and serve them as a half-dead, well until you rot completely away or someone kills you...completely.

I started out liking the book and found the action good. As it went along it "wore on me" and I wasn't as interested. You know, after a while the "gross-out factor" can get to have less impact. You can only get revolted by detailed descriptions of carnage, body-parts, flying organs and so on, so often. After while it just kind of runs off your back. I got to the climax in center of the book and frankly it was just a slow down. I literally got bored when I was supposed to be "concerned" and "worried" about the protagonist.

The book's okay and it ends in a pretty blatant "more to come" fashion. I don't know if I'll follow it up or not. Maybe later. This is a more violent take on the vamp topic and if it had stayed with he fast moving style I think it would have been a better book. It's attempt to "deepen the story" mostly just slowed the entire story.

So, try it yourself...

(view spoiler)(less)

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Jul 17, 2007 Ally Armistead rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Chris

A very graphic vampire/crime/thriller tale, that--despite having very two-dimensional cop and vampire characters and too many plot twists to keep up with!--contributes quite a lot to the vampire genre. Namely, (1) the method of becoming a vampire is one of hypnosis and willing suicide instead of traditional bloodletting and exchanging, (2) vampires are hideous, not the beautiful aristocratic creatures of modern society, (3) vampiric ancestors are brought to life when their descendents feed on hu...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Debbie Lake rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, horror

This tale introduces us to Jameson Arkeley, a U.S. Marshal and well-known vampire hunter, and Laura Caxton, a Pennsylvania state trooper and apparently a person of interest to vampires. The two meet when Caxton stops a car during a routine road check and finds 3 corpses in the trunk. The driver escapes but Laura quickly realizes something is wrong. Arkeley is determined to wipe out any vampires still in existence. Caxton quickly becomes his protege, although their relationship is not very friend...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Franklyn Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

13 Bullets by David Wellington

From the Author:

All the official rpeorts say they are dead -- extinct since the late '80s, when a fed named Arkely nailed the last vampire in a fight that nearly killed him. But the evidence proves otherwise.

When a state trooper named Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment -- who else? He's been expecting such a call to come eventually. sure it has been years since any signs of an attack, but Arkely kn...more 13 Bullets by David Wellington

From the Author:

All the official rpeorts say they are dead -- extinct since the late '80s, when a fed named Arkely nailed the last vampire in a fight that nearly killed him. But the evidence proves otherwise.

When a state trooper named Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment -- who else? He's been expecting such a call to come eventually. sure it has been years since any signs of an attack, but Arkely knows what most people don't: there is one left. In an abandoned asylum she is rotting, plotting and biding her time in a way only the undead can.

Caxton is out of her league on this case and more than a little afraid, but the fed made it plain that there is only one way out. but the worst thing is the feeling that the vampires want more than her blood. They want her for a reason, one she can't guess; a reason her sphinxlike partner knows but won't say; a reason she has to find out -- or die trying.

Now there are only 13 bullets between Caxton and Arkeley and the vampires. There are only 13 bullets between us, the living and them, the damned.

Review:

* * * * * * * * 8 of 10.

No, this is not a new novel. This has been around for a few years, and I just had the pleasure of reading it. And all I have to say is thank you.

This book treats vampires like they should be, something to be feared. after years of suffering through the Twilights and True Bloods of the world, it's good to see someone finally make vampires evil again. Cold, cunning and calculating, Wellington's vampires are more sociopath than romantic, more animal than outcast, and definitely more serial killer than brooding loner. He even makes fun of those types, skewering them viciously in every blood-soaked page. Our heroes, Caxton and Arkeley seem in danger every moment they are matched up with one of these monstrous foes, and seem like they'll barely survive each other -- him, the grim, secretive, scarred veteran of the havoc these monsters can wreak, and her, the dangerously inexperienced rookie to such horrors -- much less an onslaught of these predators. It all makes for a very tense read, chewing up page after page of action.

This is an awesome read, and a rather cool intro to this series. Thank you, Mr. wellington, for making vampires fun again.(less)

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Mar 26, 2012 Sunrunner rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was very disappointed in this book. It is set in an alternate universe where vampires have been known to exist for many years. Mr. Wellington did not follow a "traditional" view of vampires (attractive, predators, e.t.c...) but as total savages, using telepathy and mind control to gain followers and passing along their "curse" through the previously mentioned telepathy. I can applaud Mr. Wellington for going off on a different path, but to go so far from the more traditional mythology of vampi...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

13 Bullets is the first book in the Laura Caxton series by David Wellington and a novel of horror from Three Rivers Press.

Book Blurb:

All the official reports say they are dead - extinct since the late '80s, when a fed named Arkeley nailed the last vampire in a fight that nearly killed him. But the evidence proves otherwise.

When a state trooper named Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment - who else? He's been expecting such a call...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Cindy (eclecticfirefly) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What can I say..... I liked Laura's character. She seemed like a real person to me. Trying to do the best job she can. Wanting to live up to other people's expectations. But having to do those things in the context of her not quite conventional life.

Arkeley was a tough guy to like. He was only interested in how other people could help him get rid of the vampires. Didn't matter to him if they died in the process. He seemed to think everyone involved was of lesser importance than accomplishing his...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Noe Crockett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Normally I would give this book three stars because the storyline was a little silly at some points, but I decided to go with four stars because it was so completely addictive that I finished it in record time.

So here's the story, an old FBI agent and young lesbian (I don't know why that's important enough for me to put in here) highway patrol trooper are hunting down some vampires who have run amok in rural Pennsylvania (or Pennsyltucky as referred to in the book).

The coolest thing for me abou...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Clark Hallman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror-supernatural

Wellington’s vampires are quite different from the vampires you may have experienced in Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They are not as stealthy or sophisticated as Stoker and King portrayed them to be. They are not a stupid and easy to kill as the vampires Buffy battled. Wellington’s vampires are almost impossible to kill with a wooden stake in your hand, or even with firearms and other weapons. They also are not affected by crosses or garli...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Christopher Clark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first saw this book a couple of years ago and dismissed it. I frankly have been tired of the vampire genre. But I went on vacation and picked it up and turns out I love the grungy style of this book. I love how Wellington de-romantices vampires and makes them for what they truly would be--disgusting undead creatures with considerable power, but with a crippling addiction for blood.

Not really sure why he made the main character gay however. I'm not anti-gay, but you would think he developed th...more

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Mar 13, 2009 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Vampire killers

Recommended to Matthew by: Saw the third one in a book store

Shelves: vampires, horror

If you like vampire stories because they show vampires in a sympathetic light, make them lovable, understandable, marriageable or sparkly, this is not your book.

If on the other hand, you appreciate the more subtle attractions of a race of beings that never die on their own, are obsessed with eating their favorite food all ~~day~~ night, are only interested in their pre-vampire friends is as an entree or as a new recruit, and who repeatedly draw the negative attention of hunters who have a visceral d...more If you like vampire stories because they show vampires in a sympathetic light, make them lovable, understandable, marriageable or sparkly, this is not your book.

If on the other hand, you appreciate the more subtle attractions of a race of beings that never die on their own, are obsessed with eating their favorite food all ~~day~~ night, are only interested in their pre-vampire friends is as an entree or as a new recruit, and who repeatedly draw the negative attention of hunters who have a visceral dislike of the vampire lifestyle, then you will truly appreciate 13 Bullets.

I read this book after completing the Twilight series (which I also liked), and the contrast between Stephanie Meyer's and David Wellington's idea of vampires is pretty stark. In David Wellington's universe, there are no "vegetarian" vampires, they all need human blood, and lots of it. His vampires are pale, but they aren't beautiful (think Nosferatu on steroids). You wouldn't want to kiss one because of all the extra teeth they develop and the fact that they usually are biting you with said teeth. They're indestructible, super strong, fast healing, bald as cue balls, have funny looking ears, and unruly dispositions. They live forever, just like the Cullen family, but one of the wrinkles about being a Wellingtonian vampire is that as you get older, you need more blood, so that by the time you are a hundred years old you're never going to get enough of your favorite drink with out making some more vampires to help you satisfy your appetite by collecting blood for you. It's sort of an undead pyramid scheme, except that no one who is recruited gets to leave the Amway clan once they join.

And how do you get recruited? Well, you don't get bitten. Instead, you get psychically invaded by the vampire, who leaves a portion of his evil soul in your mind, that then tries to convince you to "accept the Curse" of the undead by killing yourself. This vampiric Trojan horse never goes away, even if you manage to kill your attacker. So, have a bad day at work or start feeling a little down on your life, and you're starting down the slippery slope to an all liquid diet.

So if the vampires are the bad guys, who are the good guys? Like Twilight, this book has a heroine who is the focus of the book. However, she is almost entirely unlike Bella Swan in every way. Laura Caxton is a grown up whose parents are dead, as a result of sad but mundane causes. She is a Pennsylvania state trooper, and is a lesbian in a committed relationship. She is driven to succeed in her life, but unsure of herself because she doesn't realize her worth and her inner strength. She is also, for reasons she doesn't understand, a vampire magnet. As a person with real strengths and flaws, she is a sympathetic character, and one that the reader hopes will persevere, and survive until the next book (at least).

Her boss is less sympathetic, but just as flawed. Jameson Arkeley is a Special Deputy in the US Marshals Service who has dedicated his career to rooting out and destroying the vampire menace. He's grouchy, uncompromising, esoteric, and rude. He doesn't tell Caxton his complete plan, until it's nearly too late. He serves as the Van Helsing of this dark tale, providing the backstory, and describing the ways of Wellington's vampires. He is also knowingly and unknowingly enmeshing Trooper Caxton in his crazed quest to destroy evil.

The story is set against the backdrop of rural Pennsylvania, and anyone who has lived there will instantly understand the author's characterizations of the peculiarities of that state, especially the backwater areas where the stranger people Pennsylvanians dwell.

This was a good story, so I won't wreck it for you by sharing much of the plot. Just watch out for the unexpected plot twist at the end that brings everything into a much sharper focus. I'm looking forward to the next book, which is going to give a new twist to the bizarre history of Gettysburg, PA.

By the way, the fundamental difference between Twilight and 13 Bullets is that the former is a love story with vampires in it, while the latter is a vampire story, period.(less)

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Feb 24, 2010 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had forgotten what real vampires were like until I got my hands on this book.

Wellington's vampires are a stark reminder of what vampires are supposed to be. Granted, they aren't as romanticized as their predecessors, but I can't hold that against him, sometimes you need a villain who is purely evil.

The novel has something I've never experienced before in fiction: a sense of doom from page one. You pick up this book and realise that something is going to go horribly wrong at some point. And i...more

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Apr 18, 2011 Emily Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Emily by: NO ONE

Shelves: kindle-books, 4-star-books, books-i-will-review

Date April 17, 2011

Great book!!!!

Date April 18, 2011

Hello,

13 Bullets

I had a hard time rating this book. I wanted to give this book a 5 star,then looking through all the book, I finally decided on a 4 star. I always try to give these authors an honest rating. I usually try to take about one day to look over the book, and write down why I giving this book this rating.

Here's my April review.

This book is pretty interesting. I saw some of the reviews for this book, and I sadly disagree with a few...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to

In the prologue to Thirteen bullets we are introduced to Special Deputy Jameson Arkeley . He and his then partner are staking out a diner as they suspect a vampire is in or near the diner. Their suspicions are correct and, as they attempt to take out the vampire, Arkeley ’s partner and an entire Swat team are killed. Arkeley himself is kidnapped by the vampire and taken to the vampire’s lair. There Arkeley witnesses something peculiar. The vampire proceeds to regurgitate all the blood he has con...more In the prologue to Thirteen bullets we are introduced to Special Deputy Jameson Arkeley . He and his then partner are staking out a diner as they suspect a vampire is in or near the diner. Their suspicions are correct and, as they attempt to take out the vampire, Arkeley ’s partner and an entire Swat team are killed. Arkeley himself is kidnapped by the vampire and taken to the vampire’s lair. There Arkeley witnesses something peculiar. The vampire proceeds to regurgitate all the blood he has consumed on three withered bodies which Arkeley discovers to be very old vampires. Arkeley manages to kill the vampire and set the vampire’s lair alight.
Fast forward to present day 20 years later.
We meet our second main character Laura Caxton, a Pennsylvnaia State trooper, as Arkeley rolls up to a car abandoned at a sobriety checkpoint. Inside the trunk are the dead bodies of a man and two boys, along a fence line is a dismembered arm of the driver of the car. Arkeley knows immediately that he is dealing with a vampire and requests the assistance of Caxton. Caxton repeatedly states that she is “just highway patrol” but she slowly becomes interested in helping Arkeley track down the vampire. Eventually Caxton is introduced to Justinia Malvern, the forth unfed vampire that Arkeley had seen 20 years earlier in the vampire lair. The courts had determined that Justinia could not be killed and she now resides in an abandoned sanatorium. Arkeley suspects that Malvern has created several new vampires to assist in freeing her from the sanatorium. She basically confirms this and for the bulk of the novel Arkeley and Caxton track down the vampires Malvern has created.
This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the portrayal of the vampires themselves. They are very much more in the Nosferatu style with bald heads, pointed ears and shark like teeth. By day they are basically puddles of organic matter confined to their coffins. They are not tortured romantic souls. One of the vampires allows his psychopathic tendencies, suppressed in life, to surface and poses his victims in macabre vignettes. I also appreciated the portrayal of the vampire’s assistants who are dead victims brought back to life to serve the vampire. The half deads as they are known tend to be self-loathing rotting chunks of former humanity, cowardly but potentially lethal. I was also intrigued by the way that new vampires are made, not by being bitten, but by having the vampire insert him/herself in the minds of those individuals who are depressed and/or suicidal. I was also interested in the concept that younger vampires would take care of the elder, decrepit vampires.
The book did fall apart somewhat for me with some of the mythology surrounding the elder vampires and in particular with Justinia Malvern. At one point Justinia’s brood slaughters an entire small village presumably to feed her, yet we now she is at an abandoned asylum with quite a few personnel. Wouldn’t it be more logical to simply slaughter those individuals and not draw so much attention? Presumably after Justinia fed she was going to remove herself or have herself removed anyway so the deaths of her jailers wouldn’t have made much difference. Also, I didn’t understand why the younger vampires regurgitate blood over the older vampires. Once again, wouldn’t it make more sense to take your live victim to the older vampire, slit the person’s jugular and then allow the vampire to be fed that way?
I also found the actions of Caxton’s colleagues to be peculiar. Three officers are slain by the vampires so when Arkeley and Caxton need backup they simply remain in their large command center and refuse ot help. I cannot imagine any (fictional anyway) police officer not wanting to try and take down the prep that killed a fellow officer.
The final puzzler for me was that we had assumed that Caxton had some sort of psychic radar that the vampires/half deads zeroed in on and that was why they were targeting her. However, we discover that one of the vampires was a tad kinky and simply wanted a matched set of lesbian vampires for his peculiar sexual gratification. So when Arkeley apologizes to Caxton for, in essence using her as bait, I was confused as to whether or not he knew the real reason she was being targeted.
However, I am intrigued enough to read
(less)

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Oct 13, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

This first book in a vampire series is just what I was looking for. Tired of the "Vampire is your friend" books, I need something "old school" where the vampire sees people as food. David Wellington mixes horror and police procedures as the main characters, a former FBI agent and a state trooper, hunt vampires (kind of like super charged serial killers with minions) before the master vampire is freed from her bonds. The characters are complex, as Wellington does not paint perfect people with hig...more

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Feb 05, 2012 Rjsmommy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another gory, bloody, vampires must be destroyed book...and another that I loved. SEt in modern day Pennsylvania, vampires are known throughout the world as having existed but are now belived to be extinct as of 20 years ago. Special Deputy Jameson Arkesly, the last vampire killer, is called in on a case 20 years later after a gruesome discovery which results in the discovery that vampires are still in existence. In fact, the government has been protecting one for over 20 years, and she has some...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Shelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed-from-the-library, finished-in-2009

I stumbled across David Wellington by pure fluke, but I think I'll keep reading him.

This is what vampire stories should be... vampires who don't care about humans, who just want to rip pieces of our bodies off to get at our blood. Vampires who raise half-dead minions to do their bidding, who can hypnotize with a glance, who are ugly and vicious and, and and...

This is actually the first book in a series and introduces us to Special Deputy Arkeley and Trooper Caxton, the first touted as the uber s...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love a good horror story and Wellington has the writing chops and loopy, off-kilter imagination required to provide one. His Monster Island zombie books offer twists and turns and strongly developed characters that truly feel fresh amidst a genre revival that is already rapidly tiring, only a few years after its birth.

With 13 Bullets Wellington takes aim at a genre that has also enjoyed a strong revival in the last decade or so, but for my money with much less satisfying results than the zombi...more I love a good horror story and Wellington has the writing chops and loopy, off-kilter imagination required to provide one. His Monster Island zombie books offer twists and turns and strongly developed characters that truly feel fresh amidst a genre revival that is already rapidly tiring, only a few years after its birth.

With 13 Bullets Wellington takes aim at a genre that has also enjoyed a strong revival in the last decade or so, but for my money with much less satisfying results than the zombie realm. Even when I was a kid, vampires just never scared me like zombies do. Wildly popular shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood succeed on the level of soap opera, or even musicals, not because they are scary. Don't even get me started on the woefully lame Twilight phenomenon.

Vampires are inherently campy, often delicate-seeming and way too pretty to be creepy. Vampires are fantasy while zombies, all dirt and rot and stink even in their lamer incarnations, somehow seem plausible.

Wellington seems to understand this, and he fights every inch of the vampire lore with huge monstrous bloodsuckers terrifying to behold. His monsters' eyes fill with blood after they've fed and they glow with eerie pink life. When they don't get to feed they wither and flake away into dessicated husks. The leader of the vampires is an ancient matriarch, stored away in a revamped insane asylum for research. Her body is almost literally nothing, but her mind is strong.

Despite his best efforts, however, including some pretty decent gore-fests, Wellington fails to make vampires scary. Even he seems to realize this and by the end of the book seems to be poking fun at them. Or maybe vampires just naturally make fun of themselves. I'm not sure anymore.

Still, Wellington excels at memorable characters. It is a testament to his writing that he creates a lesbian small-town police officer in rural Pennsylvania as his heroine, and didn't lose me. On the contrary, I found Officer Laura Caxton extremely endearing, and her relationship with her girlfriend was rendered with refreshing plausibility, full of quirks and problems like any relationship, and free of stupid erotica or other sexual elements one might expect from a lesbian aspect of a horror novel. Caxton's not entirely desired partner, the grizzled vampire hunter Detective Arkely, was also well-drawn.

Wellington is an efficient, economical writer. He packs a lot into very little and is always readable. Now he just needs to pick a subject that isn't inherently dumb.(less)

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Jan 23, 2013 Shonna Froebel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my third novel with vampires and boy are they ever different from each other.
One of the big differences is how vampires are made. Here the vampires are rarer, but there are lots of half-dead and even more bodies of victims. This novel is very violent and the vampires are very much controlled by their bloodlust.
When Caxton, a state trooper gets involved in a chase of a half-dead with bodies in his trunk, she gets drafted into being the partner of vampire hunter Arkeley. Some other magic i...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Leilani rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

For me, this one lacked the umph of the Werewolf series. I spent a lot of the time discouraged, once again, by yet another lead female character. She did redeem herself quite a bit near the end, but I'm still not sure why authors - even female ones - so often seem to enjoy taking what could potentially be a perfectly independent, strong female lead and giving her such a helpless complex at some point... a complex which it then becomes necessary for a stronger male character to first exploit and...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Kai Bristol rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dark, exciting vampire hunter story.
An interesting take on the vampire hunting genre. The vampires themselves feel a little ripped from thirty days of night, but are interesting as they delve into the minutia of what they can and can't do. What's cool about them is the alien nature of their minds and how severe their changes, more than the inherent physical danger of the vampires, you feel more horrified of what they're capable of and the foreign internal logic that leads them to their actions.

T...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Sherry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book because I saw a positive review of it somewhere else and thought I'd give it a try. In all honest vampire fiction has started to bore me to tears. This book changed all that. It was fast paced and interesting. Not an anemic, romantic twit of a vampire anywhere to be found. The vampires here are monsters like vampires are SUPPOSED to be.

There is action and excitement. The characters are interesting and one of the main characters is even (gasp) a strong female character. Which is...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Teawench rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, done

I really struggled to give this a rating. It's probably closer to a three star book than two. I liked that this was an alternate reality where vampires were a part of life. I like that the main character was female and isn't one of those sexy types that wears heels when going out to kick vampire butt. I also liked the slightly different twist on the vampire legend. But what I didn't like is that the main character, while sometimes tough as nails, can also become a whining puddle of goo. But I al...more

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Nov 25, 2009 Jennie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

I read Vampire Zero A Gruesome Vampire Tale accidentally first, so have gone back and started from the beginning with 13 Bullets.

I found this book far more gruesome than Vampire Zero, and was seriously grossed out in parts (which takes some doing!).

What I really like about these books is that the vampires aren't all pretty, shiny, misunderstood creatures; they are monsters who lust for blood. The vampires in these stories remind me of the ones in the movie 30 Days of Night where the vampires are...more

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Jul 05, 2010 Benjamin Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So I have a nasty habit of picking up a book at the store and just flip it open to a random page, if the descriptive words tickly my fancy I'll buy the book.....haha I tend to overspend at the book store... to get to my point this book was an instant grab. Do not expect the same with the sequels though..... honestly I was disappointed with the main protagonist being the Laura Caxton mainly because Jameson Arkeley just seemed like a bad ass older male that seemed out of norm compared to other pro...more

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Jan 20, 2013 David Gold marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: paused-may-resume-later

I'm giving up, or at least pausing this one.

The author posits a world where vampires exist, and always have existed, kind of like man-eating tigers: everyone remembers that they USED to exist, and are still surprised when they crop up again. But there's no sense to the setup, it doesn't ring true to how actual humans would react.

There's some other BS involving ghosts and psychics brought into the second half. Again, all these powers are accepted as operating along clearly defined rules without t...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Vampires.

An interesting topic don't you think?

Now before I get started, let me tell you one thing. I'm not, nor will I ever be, a Twilight fan. When i think of vampires i definately do not thing of the pale, glittery guys that are described in the Twilight series. I think of them as true monsters. Closer to the I am Legend creatures. Y'know, the one that are deathly pale, with eyes that see deep into your soul, torchuring you as they do. The ones that look truly unnatural not like our poor littl...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A non-stop twisting turning thrill ride complete with character, humor and, of course, blood. I love that Wellington's vision of the vampire is more savage animal/alien than misunderstood/romantic. (Ironically, I found FROSTBITE, Wellington's werewolf tale to be more romantic). And the story is terrific. Plenty of blood and guts but not at the expense of the plot--which is intricate without being exhausting and character- as well as action-driven. It was like reading a really good movie. I also...more

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Oct 16, 2010 Nicole Romine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, horror, vampires, strong-women

“13 Bullets” is a modern, gory vampire tale. This novel is not about brooding vampires or teenage angst ridden romance; instead, it’s action-packed and seriously scary. The plot is shockingly original and develops at a nearly breathless, but satisfying pace. The best part of “13 Bullets” is the characters, who are multifaceted and authentic, which is darn difficult to find in a horror novel. Even more impressive is that Wellington manages to develop two amazing protagonists of different genders...more

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Jul 12, 2010 Jerjonji rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: remind-me-why-i-read-this-again

When the lesbian Pennsylvania Highway Office left for work, she didn't know her life as she knew it was over. *Spoiler* After a night dealing with the undead, the only known Vampire Hunter in the US, and a depressed girlfriend, she should have guessed it was all the girlfriend's fault- it's always the girlfriend when it isn't the butler!

This book was so gory that I could only read during daylight hours. Never have vampires seemed so unlikeable! Part of series, I doubt that I'll finish it. In fac...more

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About David Wellington

David Wellington is a contemporary American horror author, best known for his Zombie trilogy as well as his Vampire series and Werewolf series. His books have been translated into eleven langauges and are a global phenomenon.

His career began in 2004 when he started serializing his horror fiction online, posting short chapters of a novel three times a week on a friend’s blog. Response to the projec...more

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Vampire Zero: A Gruesome Vampire Tale (Vampires, #3)

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Quotes from 13 Bullets

“You have a wife?” Caxton demanded.
“I killed a vampire twenty years ago, and another one last night. I had to keep myself busy in the meantime,” he told her.” — 3 people liked it

“Wow. So what was the vampire like?” “Pale. Big. Toothy,” the trooper answered.” — 3 people liked it

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13 Bullets: A Vampire Tale (Laura Caxton / Vampires #1)

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