In brief, Jack is involved with the Chicago mob and with his girlfriend Bobbi, a nightclub singer. At the moment, he's using some carefully-laundered cash to open a ritzy nightclub, Lady Crymsyn. Unfortunately, as renovations proceed, a corpse is found in the basement, a woman who had been chained to a wall and then bricked up in an alcove to die. Jack decides to investigate her identity and discover who murdered her and why. This leads him into the complicated business and romantic lives of several of Chicago's gangsters, who do not particularly appreciate such attention.
Along with his late-20th century taste for replacing perfectly good vowels with the letter Y, Jack also is surprisingly modern in his attitudes: he not only has black friends but also a live-and-let-live attitude towards gay men, even hiring one to manage his club. Elrod doesn't ignore the prejudice of the time, but Jack seems immune to it. It's a mildly false note, though presumably more palatable to modern audiences than having a prejudiced hero would be.
This isn't an especially deep or groundbreaking book either as a mystery or a vampire novel, but it's a perfectly enjoyable light read with a fun historical backdrop.
Shopping link (to the hardcover, but there's a link on that page to the paperback edition):
Jack also is surprisingly modern in his attitudes
Series about immortals, or about people who've been around a long time, tend to do that. TV series do, anyway. (Anybody else remembers New Manhattan? No, I'm not asking you, Susan, of course.) Normal humans tend to become set in their ways long before they reach their eighties, so one would expect things to be even more pronounced for those with extraordinary longevity. The thing is, they'd come off as gents we want nothing to do with.
Posted by: Serge | October 23, 2009 at 02:27 PM
It could be argued (in fact, it has been argued) that with immortals it becomes a "change or die" thing: if they don't adjust to changing technology, mores, etc. then they simply can't survive in an evolving world.
That's a little different than having modern attitudes before they've arrived in general. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it was a little too PC to be convincing to me.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | October 25, 2009 at 08:35 PM
Of course, there are people who were ahead of their time, with attitudes toward certain subjects that would be considered modern, but your point is taken, Susan. (That in fact was one of the major problems I had with 1997's Wild Wild West. There was plenty of silliness in it, but Will Smith as a secret-service man pushed it way over the edge.)
Posted by: Serge | October 26, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Just finished watching Episodes 3 & 4 of True Blood. I was highly amused when I noticed the painting behind Fangtasia's bartender. It's Alex Ross's image of Dubya as a vampire drinking blood from Lady Liberty's neck.
Posted by: Serge | November 12, 2009 at 12:05 AM