Of Saints and Shadows by Christopher Golden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Moving back in time to the 90's, I read this wonderful little book and a few of its sequels and did my squee because the story really broke the Anne Rice vampire mold. Not only that, but it went firmly into the baby UF territory long before the whole movement took off and had thousands of lookalike vampire/werewolf/witch/whatever private investigators dealing with all the things that go bump in the night.

This author blazed not only that trail, but boldly screwed with all our expectations about where a tale OUGHT to go.

So what IS this book?

A murder investigation that moonlights as a later Dan Brown book that combines sympathetic vampires, evil renegade Catholic sorcerers as the Enemy, and a humungous media blow-out that was made popular, to a lesser degree, by Anita Blake and later with Sookie Stackhouse.

What I really get is a rip-roaring fun vampire read that tackles not only self-perception in a really big way, but hoards of demons blowing up Venice.

DELICIOUS.

And I'll be honest, the first time I read this I kinda thought a particular discovery that later lends itself to a complete revolution of thought might have been a bit too... FAST... in this novel. But thinking about it much more has led me to think it is ABOUT TIME. These are long-lived vamps, after all. None of Peter's concerns and exhortations were new. Indeed, they had all been thinking about this very problem for a century. Just because no one but Peter, the black sheep, had a breakthrough, it doesn't mean that they couldn't learn super-fast when the TRUTH is right in front of them in all its glory. :)

So I've revised my original estimation UP. More than that, I wish this had it's own TV series. It could be BETTER than Discovery of Witches, on the same level or much, much bigger.

It certainly has tons more guns, more slathering monsters, and a much more delicious cast of baddies. Oh, you naughty Vatican, you. :)

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