How to Save a Human (Vampire Related Crimes 4) by Alice Winters

[Ulysses]

How to Save a Human (Vampire Related Crimes, 4)
BY Alice Winters
Published by the author, 2021
Five stars

I’m changing my name to Bentley DeGray. This character was largely in the background of the earlier books in this series, but in book 4 he takes center stage in a story arc that spans books 2 and 3.

What makes Bentley so interesting in relation to characters like the Church twins, is that he is a little younger than Alexei Karsyn, and has never lost touch with surviving members of his human family over the course of more than a century. This is a vampire for whom human connection has always been part of his life. Unlike Marcus Church, DeGray is pleased when he finds a handsome young man named River Garza, flirting with him in a local coffee shop.

The background to Bentley and River’s flirtation is a rapidly evolving and highly public case of a number of high-profile vampires getting abducted and threatened on live amateur video feeds. The mysterious kidnaper seems to be trying to force them to confess to something. The VRC team is hot on this case, which only gets more confusing by the day.

Bentley DeGray is a fairly uncomplicated character, oddly enough. As his interest in River is kindled, however, things get markedly more complicated, which gives the author a chance to develop both of their characters individually and as an emerging couple. As was true with book 3 in the series, Winters gives us amusing banter and a significant pet to leaven the mood and engage the reader’s emotions.

Winters has an interesting narrative technique, in that she seems to resolve a number of complicated plot issues by the middle of the book; and then proceeds to add new, traumatic complications that threaten to explode all those resolutions. It makes the books feel somehow more substantial, building up interactions among the different characters that adds emotional texture as well as action to the story.

Here, Alexei and Claude are sidelined—but play critical roles at moments in the action. The same is true of Marcus and Finn. By the hair-raising finale of this book, all of the major VRC players have truly coalesced into a team rather than simply being a group of quirky individuals. It’s a very satisfying progression, and I’ll be fascinated to see how this goes in the promised fifth episode.