Stalking the Vampire -- Michael Resnick

About 20 years ago, I read Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn. He's just now gotten around to doing a sequel. In the first book, John Justin Mallory, a low-rent p. i., gets a case that takes him to an alternate Manhattan. It's New Year's Eve, and he has 24 hours to find a unicorn. In the new book, it's only two years later (time must pass more slowly there), and it's Halloween. This time, Mallory has one night to find a vampire who's killed the nephew of his partner, Winnifred Carruthers. He's accompanied by a vampire named Bats McGuire and a dragon named Nathan. Nathan prefers to be called Scaly Jim Chandler, the name he uses on the private-eye novels he writes.

The chase is complicated by the fact that on this particular evening, all the supernatural inhabitants of the island are out and partying. Zombies, vampires, goblins, you name it. Corpses abound. Lots of weirdness is going on, so much that the case itself doesn't really seem to matter as Resnick engages in lots of riffs, rants, and comic patter. A Robert B. Parker novel doesn't have nearly as much repartee as this one does. So be prepared. You'll either laugh a lot and have a good time (as I certainly did), or not. If you're in the mood for weirdness and laughs, this would be a good one to pick up. Pyr has just reprinted Stalking the Unicorn if you want to check that one out first.