How to Lure a Hunter (Vampire Related Crimes 3) by Alice Winters

[Ulysses]

How to Lure a Hunter (Vampire Related Crimes, 3)
By Alice Winters
Published by the author, 2020
Five Stars

What I like best about this series is the integration of vampire characters into a plausible alternative universe. The VRC (Vampire Related Crime) unit is a wry take on the endless CSI spinoffs on television, and in this third volume the focus shifts onto a different cast-member.

Karsyn—short for Alexei Karsynov—is a dour, grumpy Russian, who seems to be shielding his personal history behind a façade of carefully crafted unfriendliness. Karsyn’s nemesis in this book is another character introduced but not explored earlier—his boss Marcus Church’s flamboyantly irritating twin brother, Claude.

An obsessive bibliophile in opposition to his twin’s warlord persona, Claude sets his sights on Karsyn, who is appalled at the idea that this outrageous man, with his loud clothes and impulsive behavior, could be interested in him. When Claude turns out to be potentially useful as a consultant for a particularly murky case involving the brutal murder of local vampires, Karsyn resigns himself to working with his boss’s brother.

I gave this book a full five stars because it’s so surprisingly funny. The sitcom antics between Claude and Karsyn had me chortling throughout the story, even as both the murder case and Karsyn’s own backstory are explored to hair-raising effect. There is an effective use of pets as a comic foil, something I also appreciate, and the author weaves the creepy mystery, the traumatic personal history, and the silly developing romance deftly into something pretty unusual in this genre.

For all that the author has romance front and center in her mind; this is a seriously dark mystery, and the back-and-forth keeps the book unsettling in a way that is pretty effective.

On to book 4 in the series, and yet another character I hardly know. Oh, goody.