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Detective Teri Lewis doesn't like her new partner, foisted on her after she bungles one or two major investigations, putting other officers at risk. She also doesn't like the case she's confronting: multiple bodies, bizarre (if not impossible) causes of death, and evidence that disappears. Christian is the newest member of a vampire kamera, which is rather like a coven of witches with the ability to share powers within the kamera. Christian isn't a full-fledged member yet; he's still trying to pass the initiation without knowing quite what that initiation will be. This particular kamera is snake-connected; all members have names and powers connected with a particular snake. Naje, the leader, is responsible for most of the bodies Detective Lewis is investigating. Other members of the kamera killed the people in New York and New Jersey. THE BLOOD HUNTERS shifts point-of-view every chapter -- first Detective Lewis, then Christian, then back to Detective Lewis. This works very well for this book, since there are two stories being told. Detective Lewis's story is a straightforward police procedural which happens to be dealing with a crime involving supernatural beings. As one might imagine, Detective Lewis doesn't particularly want to accept this. There is quite a bit of scientific discussion about DNA and biology and neurotheology, all of it connected with the case. Christian and the kamera are trying to avoid detection as a result of all the murders, which Naje and others committed while trying to protect themselves from temps (humans) trying to control them. At the same time, and of much greater significance to the vampires, there is a threat from another kamera, a group in Mexico which wants to kill Naje and his group. From the vampires' perspective, the murder investigation requires damage control, the threat from Mexico demands pre-emptive action. The police procedural portion of THE BLOOD HUNTERS is not bad. The kinds of things Detective Lewis deals with -- the politics, the verbal sniping, the growth of a real partnership with Jackson, and so forth -- read like many other police procedurals I've read before. The part that caused me to raise an eyebrow was Lewis schlepping off to Paris, on government money, basically on spec. The vampire portion I found peculiar. I'm not a student of vampire culture; I've read the Ann Rice and Tanya Huff books, seen a few versions of Dracula, and read one or two books on the subject over the course of a lifetime of reading. A great deal of the culture attributed to the vampires in THE BLOOD HUNTERS was new to me -- the snake connection, the fact that this group could exist at all without friction, that they fed each other sometimes, the symbiotic relationship once one was part of the kamera. Some of the vocabulary was also new to me. This isn't a bad book; it isn't a great book. If you like police procedurals with a bit of woo-woo, you might enjoy THE BLOOD HUNTERS. If you like vampire books, you will almost certainly enjoy it. I don't know if Ramsland's other book, THE HEAT SEEKERS, is a vampire book or part of a series, but I won't be going out of my way to track it down. THE BLOOD HUNTERS didn't hook me, but it might hook you.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, June 2004
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