Hollywood, California: three gruesome deaths within two weeks and every one of them a major star – an Oscar winner, an ingénue, and an action hero. A serial killer is working through the Hollywood A-list and celebrities are running scared.
Each crime scene is worthy of a classic horror movie, and all three victims share a connection to the powerful scream queen, Ovsanna Moore. The stunning and formidable Moore is the legendary head of a Hollywood studio, as well as the writer and star of seventeen blockbuster horror films (and a few that went straight to DVD).
She’s also a 500 year old vampyre…but this is Hollywood after all, and no one ever looks their age.
Beverly Hills Police Detective Peter King knows a lot about the City of Angels, but he certainly doesn’t know that most of the famous actors in town are actually an established network of vampires. Or that secretive and seductive Ovsanna Moore happens to be their CEO.
Moore and King may be from opposite sides of the Hollywood Hills, but both have something to gain by stopping the killer who the tabloids have dubbed the Cinema Slayer. Ovsanna must protect her vampire legacy and her production schedule, while King just wants to keep his Beverly Hills beat as blood-free as possible. But when the horror queen and the cop with the movie star looks form an unholy alliance, sparks fly and so do the creatures of the night.
You know all that stuff that we’ve learned about vampyres in the movies? All fiction created by the vampyres themselves all to throw them off the scent of the real vamps. In this book the vampyres rule Hollywood. Orson Wells, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Peter Lorre, Rudolph Valentino and a host of others are all vamps and they are the Vampyres of Hollywood. The Elite. They have all faked their deaths but are still alive and kicking but in seclusion. They are also the people that Ovsanna has to answer to when the celebrities/vampyres that she created are starting to get murdered. When people close to her, that aren’t vampyres, start getting murdered the older vampyres decide to give her orders. Her orders: find the person who is killing everyone or you must “die”. Dying for Osvanna means that she fakes her death and goes into hiding for a century or so and then comes back as someone else. Osvanna doesn’t feel like this is an option that she wants to take so she sets out to find the murderer. In the meantime Beverly Hills Detective Peter King is on the case and trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He knows that Osvanna is lying to him but he can’t quite figure out why she’s doing it.
I really liked Peter King. He was a great character and had a wonderful dry wit. His sense of humor dried up a bit as the book went on but whose wouldn’t after seeing the gore of a mass murder? When he finally is told about vampyres he takes it with an acceptance that surprised me but I guess it’s Hollywood so you see just about everything. lol
Osvanna took a little more time for me to warm up to. Her character was brilliant yet very cold at first, but she seemed to defrost toward the end of the book. Actually the more I think about it I’m not sure that we got to know all that much about Osvanna’s character itself. We were told innumerous times who she’d known in the past and the things she’d done but I don’t think that we got to delve into Osvanna herself too much and maybe that’s why she seemed so aloof to me. IDK.
I found this book to be equal parts funny, gory and frustrating. The murders being told in great detail was pretty gory/nasty. Those of you who sicken easily at the description of people found decapitated and/or cut up in to small pieces may have a problem with this book. The frustrating part was the non stop descriptions of what Osvanna had done, objects she had from the past, who she knew, etc. It seemed that the world building – Osvanna’s world – was never ending. I think I would have liked to have gotten to know the woman herself more – as she was now rather than who/what she was or who she knew in the past. But there was also a lot of humor and that was quite nice to read – I did find myself laughing out loud several times when I started the book (mostly at Peter).
Overall I liked it. I didn’t love it but it was definitely entertaining. I have book 2 in the series and will be reading that soon.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
I received this book from Authors on the Web for review.
Hmm. Y'know, maybe, if I pick up m/f again at some point. 🙂
This is definitely m/f but really there's not a romance involved at all. I guessed that there may be a romance in the future for Osvanna and Peter but it may just turn into a good friendship.