“Hey… you.” The man looked him over again. “You fight? Right?” His lips thinned, his eyes on Nick’s chest and arms. “…You look like you do. Frankly, you’re the first vampire I’ve seen in here who’s worth the cost of admission.”At Nick’s blank stare, the man shrugged.“A hundred thousand to fight. Twice that, if you win.” Nick gets pulled into the world of underground boxing, first to support a … underground boxing, first to support a friend, and then to help one of the homicide detectives in his precinct solve a case.
Things get personal, fast, when Nick gets drawn into the game himself, and into the sights of the killers, who appear to be targeting vampires, first draining them for blood and venom before extracting their hearts and tossing them outside the dome.
Nick is technically still suspended, but that doesn’t keep him out of the crosshairs with some of the biggest names in the criminal underground that runs New York Protected Area.
Nor does it reassure his new girlfriend, who by now is convinced he has a death wish, or at the very least will do just about anything to avoid talking to her about what’s going on between the two of them.
Book #2 of the Vampire Detective Midnight series.
VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT is a new romantic, science fiction and fantasy series set in a futuristic, dystopian New York populated by vampires, humans and psychics trying to rebuild their world after a devastating race war nearly obliterates the previous one.
A spinoff of the Quentin Black Mystery series, it features vampire with a past and homicide detective, Naoko “Nick” Tanaka, who gets transferred to the NYPD after a bad incident in Los Angeles forces him to start a new life. Nick works as a “Midnight,” or vampire in the employ of the human police department, but when he arrives in New York, he really just wants to be left alone to work, surf, and deal with his immortality in peace.
Life, and the residents of New York, clearly have other ideas.
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“Eyes of Ice” is the second instalment into the “Vampire Detective Midnight” series by J.C. Andrijeski, a state-regulated vampire, who works the night-shifts assisting the human police with ‘special’ cases. Tanaka is the embodiment of a Japanese-like hero, the one who manages to save the day, because is the right thing to do, without needed any other reason, even as he keeps ending up in probably even a worse position that he ever was in in the very first place. Tanaka has his life cut out for him, wherever he goes
Nick Tanaka survived his first assignment (not this is not a spoiler this is the second book in ‘Tanaka’s’ series, thus… of course he is still ‘alive’); his second one brings him into the world of illegal underground boxing. As vampire bodies drain of blood, keep appearing on the city, the department seeks Tanaka’s help, somehow reinstalling him in the process (after his suspension, sorry that ‘might’ or not be a spoiler ). What the department doesn’t know is that Tanaka was already involved in the case, helping one of his friends. The case threats not only Tanaka’s well-being, but also his romantic relationship with her fresh-backed girlfriend, who by now is fully convinced that Nick has a death wish… which honestly is not the case, ‘death just happens to be his gift’.
Nick Tanaka survived his first assignment (not this is not a spoiler this is the second book in ‘Tanaka’s’ series, thus… of course he is still ‘alive’); his second one brings him into the world of illegal underground boxing. As vampire bodies drain of blood, keep appearing on the city, the department seeks Tanaka’s help, somehow reinstalling him in the process (after his suspension, sorry that ‘might’ or not be a spoiler ). What the department doesn’t know is that Tanaka was already involved in the case, helping one of his friends. The case threats not only Tanaka’s well-being, but also his romantic relationship with her fresh-backed girlfriend, who by now is fully convinced that Nick has a death wish… which honestly is not the case, ‘death just happens to be his gift’
JC Andrijeski has the rare ability to create whole new worlds, alien and familiar at the same time with interesting characters, that captivate our attention page after page. Her writing style is delightful as always, fluid, fast paced and vivid, which helps to get across the action elements without disregarding the more subtle romantic aspects of the story. “Vampire Detective Midnight” is another wonderful series for mature readers that appreciate multidimensional characters and new perspectives.
The second book in The Vampire Detective Midnight series
As I follow along with Nick and his new life I am enthralled with where this is headed. Before (in the Black series stories I was curious about him) and now, well he is a bad SOB. Approached at a fight club to be a fill-in for the nonhuman fight ring, he is thrust into a dangerous timing of vampires turning up dead. He goes deeper to help find the killers and all hell breaks loose. Will he be next?
The writings of JC Andrijeski never fails to bring you into the world of the futuristic world of vampires seers and humans, you won’t be disappointed.
Incredible story!
I should not like JC Andrijeski’s Vampire Detective Midnight series. I’m kinda burned out on vampire stories and I’ve never been a big fan of dystopian tales. I frankly only tried the first book (separately reviewed) because I’ve enjoyed everything else written by this author and didn’t want to risk missing out on the off chance that it was good. Smart move by me as that book was fantastic. So is Eyes of Ice (Book 2). I actually enjoyed the futuristic, dystopian, New York created for this series because the background for the dystopia is different from the norm, and the inhabitants, be they vampires, humans or psychics, are so well crafted. Add in a pretty darn gritty detective tale, with action, suspense and s great blending of sci-fi and fantasy / paranormal, and a great cast from Naoko “Nick” Tanaka (the eponymous vampire detective) on down and the result is a clear winner. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review to my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises. The book definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the book is most definitely one to read, and it is easy to highly recommend. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.
Oh Nick!
You just can’t keep out of trouble. Or is trouble following you? I guess both.
Not even allowed to go back to work, going crazy sitting in his apartment, he gets a surprise hall-pass for one night of “fun”.
He lands himself a new hobby and some life threatening new “friends”.
This new, or rather old world, he’s stuck in, slowly begins to reveal some surprising secrets. Not much he can take at face value.
And then there’s his love life. As long as he has been a Vampire, he still navigates it stuck to his old beliefs about himself from before he was turned. He won’t even accept a good thing when it is shoved in his face.
But that’s Nick for you. A great detective, rubbish at just living. Wait, he isn’t living, at being dead, undead, … ?