Two beautiful books by Mike Resnick came into the studio today courtesy of Pyr. I can’t keep up with all the good stuff Lou is publishing. Someone put him on ice for a few months. Just kidding, Lou.
Stalking the Unicorn
It’s 8:35pm on New Year’s Eve, and Private Detective John Justin Mallory hides out in his Manhattan office to avoid his landlord’s persistent inquiries about the unpaid rent. As he cheerlessly reflects on the passing of a lousy year that saw his business partner run off with his wife, he assumes the bourbon is responsible for the appearance of a belligerent elf trying to solicit his business in searching for a unicorn that was stolen from his charge. When Mallory realizes the little green fellow is not going to disappear with the passing of his inebriation, he listens to the elf’s impassioned plea that the stolen magical beast must be returned to his care by daylight … or his little green life will be forfeit by the elves’s guild. Join detective Mallory on a New Year’s night of wild adventure in a fantasy Manhattan of Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Harpies as he matches wits with the all-powerful demon Grundy in a race to find the missing unicorn before time runs out!
Stalking the Vampire
It’s Halloween and John Justin Mallory’s partner, Winnifred Carruthers, has been so busy preparing for the biggest holiday of the year (in this Manhattan, anyway) that she seems short of energy and pale. Mallory is worried that she’s been working too hard. Then he notices the two puncture marks on her neck. . . .
On this night when ghosts and goblins are out celebrating, detective Mallory must stalk the vampire who has threatened his partner and killed his nephew. With the aid of Felina the cat-girl, Mallory and Carruthers investigate clubs and lairs that only seem to exist on this one night of the year.
His hunt takes him to Creepy Conrad’s Cut-Rate All-Night Mortuary, where he questions the living and the dead; to the Vampire State Building; to the annual Zombie’s Ball, to learn more about the undead; to the Hills of Home Mortuary, Cemetery and Delicatessen, where the vampire sleeps by day; and to Battery Park, where all of Manhattan’s bats come to feed and sleep. Along the way he meets a few old friends and enemies, and a host of strange new inhabitants of this otherworldly Manhattan.
Locked in an intriguing battle of wits with the millennia-old vampire, Mallory has until dawn if he is to save his trusted partner.
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