Dreadful Company: A Dr Greta Helsing Novel

4+ stars! Another exceptional read from Vivian Shaw! I'm not one to generally go along with the sort of Hollywood-esque praise (you know: love love kiss kiss, let's do lunch DAH-ling) that is oft included in the small-case, roman-numeraled pages of new books. However, I am going to borrow some comments describing 'Strange Practice' that work just as well for 'Dreadful Company', allowing for the whole time-space continuum bits that I'm no doubt violating for doing so! 'Dreadful Company' is indeed a 'joy to read' and 'an exceptional and delightful' follow-up Shaw's first book (seriously, how is it she is just starting on this career?). And I can only echo that it is 'written with elegance, wit and compassion!' The tension, the passion and the characterizations that the author creates or continues as the case may be are a sheer pleasure to experience! To be just a little more crude about the situation: Dr. Greta Helsing and her pals kick ass! Just as with the first book, the plot is balanced with a good dose of humour, more than a dollop of horror and leaves the reader cheering for the heroes no matter their particular living or unliving status! And the fact that this second book takes us to my favourite city, namely Paris (sorry London) makes it all the more thrilling knowing I having stepped or supped or goodness knows what exactly where so much of the action happens! Simplement magnifique! Though I had not joined Goodreads when I read the first book last year, I will repeat what I told my friends in other forums at that time: for the first time since the passing of the immortal Sir Terry Pratchett, I feel an author really knows how to treat all the creations of our imagination. Vampires (and vampyres) have real needs and concerns as do demons, ghouls, werecreatures, zombies, ghosts, mummies and more! If this keeps up - and the blurb about the upcoming third volume only raises my interest in extremus - she will prove to be a worthy successor in that regard indeed. I COMMAND THEE MORTALS: READ THESE BOOKS!