Imperial Purple

Narrelle M. Harris
The Opposite of Life
Pulp Fiction Press, 2007

Having complained in my previous post that all vampires seem to be a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Spock it is perhaps to be expected that in the very next book I read I encounter Gary. Gary is a vampire. Gary wears a ghastly bright tropical shirt, has no social skills and spends his days pottering around his late parents’ house reading engineering textbooks.

Harris has come up with an excellent take on vampires. Eternal life is the promise but it is a cheat - sure you live for ever but you are caught in a time warp of the date you died. Your brain has difficulty learning new things and you slowly sink into a sort of lethargic boredom where only fresh blood makes you feel anything at all. Gary makes an effort - he was studying to be an engineer when he was ‘turned’ in the sixties - but he finds the going tough.

Mostly vampires keep to themselves and suck small amounts of blood from volunteers in one of Melbourne’s more exclusive underground night clubs. But now a vampire is apparently running amok and blood-drained victims are appearing everywhere. More specifically they keep ruining Lissa Wilson’s attempts at a social life - dead bodies keep turning up wherever she goes. As a librarian and geek girl who has just been dumped by a weasel of a boyfriend she needs all the social life she can get.

With considerable reluctance on both sides she teams up with Gary to try and find the killer and get life (and unlife) back to normal. Between coping with the undead and her mother Lissa does it pretty tough.

I liked this book. There is no romantic denouement but Gary and Lissa find a sort of friendship. It is a good vampire novel and a good detective cosy. There is clearly another book waiting where we will find out more about Gary and Lissa - how he copes with being undead and how she copes with him. Three and a half stars.