The Vampire of Venice Beach, by Jennifer Colt

I wanted to enjoy this book, I really did; it was given to me by a friend with high praise--though the fact that said friend is related to the author might, in retrospect, have affected her opinion--and its catchy title and concept and colors made me think that it might be the perfect travel read.

A travel read it definitely was--not fit for anything else--but not the perfect one. It wasn't quite funny enough, or, strange to say about a book whose title includes vampires, zany enough. The problem of assigning the straight man (or, in this case, woman) to be the narrator is that then the prose is forced to be dull, with the actions of the zany and interesting character (the lesbian detective twin) filtered through the perspective of the responsible and therefore ordinary character (the other detective twin). The other problem, of course, with having such an obvious "straight man" and "zany one" is that the characterizations can, if the author is not careful, end up being very paper cut-out and, frankly, flat.

The author was not careful, for the record.

Even the mystery wasn't fully satisfying to me: while all the loose ends were wrapped up, it's true, the denouement felt rather lame, perhaps because there were too many false endings, and, frankly, too many red herrings. Give the reader a fighting chance, please?

So I was disappointed, not that I would have expected to adore a book like this, and after finishing it, I gave it to the man sitting next to me on the bus, who wanted to practice his English. I don't regret it.