Blood Riders

August 6, 2012
Spradlin (Jack and Jill Went Up to Kill: A Book of Zombie Nursery Rhymes) makes the Wild West of 1881 truly rambunctious. Det. Allan Pinkerton dispatches disgraced Army captain Jonas Hollister on a covert assignment to destroy renegade quasi-vampires called Archaics that destroyed Hollister’s unit five years before and are now targeting small towns. Dissension within Archaic ranks pits Shaniah, who’s concerned for her people’s survival, against brutal Malachi, who is breaking Archaic laws by attacking humans. Hollister’s intrepid and colorful team grows to include Shaniah, Chee (who boasts of “Cajun, Chinese, Creek, and Negro” ancestors), engineer Monkey Pete, and valiant town whore Sally. Abraham Van Helsing, in a cameo appearance, supplies comic relief and James Bond–ish special protections for Pinkerton’s steam train. Romance alternates with mounting peril as a sleazy senator’s evil, cologne-drenched henchman pursues Hollister, and exciting encounters with Archaics lead to spectacular firefights. The final showdown convincingly resolves all the plot threads and provides fans of the vampire western genre a delightful read. Agent: Steven Chudney, the Chudney Agency.

August 1, 2012
Major Hollister saw some mighty rough things during the Civil War. Misery, cruelty, and outright stupidity on both sides of the line, but nothing compared to the red-eyed, neck-chomping, unkillable gang of monsters led by evil-incarnate Malachi that so easily wipe out his patrol one night. Of course, not a soul believes Hollister's tale of what happened, until finally he's enlisted by Allan Pinkerton to rid the West of these bloodthirsty devils. Spradlin doesn't do much tinkering with either the western or the horror genresinstead he just crams the two together and lets the sparks fly. Short chapters shift the viewpoint among various characters, which leads to some double-up recounting of what just happened and slows down the action a bit. But it's not as if there's any shortage of blood-frenzied, howling fight scenes as, outfitted with an assortment of Hollywood-ready firepower, Hollister's gang sets out to send Malachi straight to kingdom come. Though predictable and not without cliche, it's still a hell of a lot of fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)