THE NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS

A soldier turned vampire is hired by an alien posing as an old friend to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at a Department of Energy facility. Seriously.

The only thing stranger than this first novel’s plot is that it’s all rather dull. Falling victim to one of war’s least-publicized perils, Felix Gomez returns from Iraq a vampire. While he’s not exactly thrilled to have joined the ranks of the undead, his shape-shifting, wall-walking, bullet-absorbing powers do come in handy for his gig as a private investigator. The newly gifted PI gets a chance to put these skills to use when an old buddy—or at least Felix thinks he’s an old buddy—asks him to unravel a recent outbreak of nymphomania at the old nuclear weapons plant Rocky Flats. Once at the site, Gomez finds himself pursued on all sides: romantically by a local forest sprite (hey, why not?), somewhat less so by a squad of Romanian vampire-hunters and some shady government types none too pleased by his investigation. Through it all, Acevedo plays it straight, pawning off the most outlandish plot points as if they were nothing but realistic. With the exception of the sex scenes, which read mostly like something taken from the Penthouse Forum slush pile, the prose is pleasantly sharp and to the point. Unfortunately, the book’s charms are largely negated by its haphazard structure. Rather than build tension and momentum as it goes, the story hops hurriedly from incident to incident, often moving too quickly to bother with the sort of foreshadowing and detail that might have laid the groundwork for subsequent thrills. Gomez finally gets his man, but by then most readers won’t much care.

Who knew nymphos could be so boring?