Blood Law »

Jeannie Holmes is a Mississippi native and holds both bachelor and master of arts degrees in English. She currently lives in Mobile, Alabama, with her husband and four neurotic cats. This is her first novel, and she is working on the sequel to Blood Law.

To stop a vampire killer, she’ll have to slay her own demons first.
 
A provocative and savvy vampire, Alexandra Sabian moves to the sleepy hamlet of Jefferson, Mississippi—population 6,000, half vampires—to escape the demons lurking in her past. As an enforcer for the Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigations (FBPI), Alex must maintain the uneasy peace between her kind and humans, including Jefferson’s bigoted sheriff, who’d be happy to see all vampires banished from town. Then really dead vamps start turning up—beheaded, crucified, and defanged, the same gruesome manner in which Alex’s father was murdered decades ago. For Alex, the professional has become way too personal.

Things get even more complicated when the FBPI sends in some unnervingly sexy backup: Alex’s onetime mentor, lover, and fiancé, Varik Baudelaire. Still stinging from the betrayal that ended their short-lived engagement, Alex is determined not to give in to the temptation that soon threatens to short-circuit her investigation. But as the vamp body count grows and the public panic level rises, Varik may be Alex’s only hope to stop a relentless killer who’s got his own score to settle and his own bloody past to put right.

Publishers Weekly

Holmes debuts with the first in a derivative paranormal mystery series featuring Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigation enforcer Alexandra Sabian, a vampire charged with policing the undead populace of Jefferson, Miss. When someone begins killing and mutilating vamps in ways that send Alex flashing back to her father’s murder, Alex’s ex-fiancé, Varik Baudelaire, is dragged out of retirement, reassigned to the FBPI, and sent to help her on the case. With all the tension between human and vampire populations exposed, the story reads like a badly conceived morality play on racism, including 1960s vampire demonstrations for equal legal rights, which they earn in a scant seven years. A dash of religious zealotry and flimflammery adds little flavor. Holmes does deviate from tradition in that her vampires, while light-sensitive, are not night creatures—in which case, why bother? (July)