American Vampire vol 2 s/c back

Whoa! If you thought the first book had bite - and it did - this is on another level altogether: two tales so taut that a tourniquet would make no difference. Same goes for the blood-letting actually.

Las Vegas 1936: building the Boulder Dam has flooded the population with a sudden surge of 3,000 workers. Catering for them - and profiting from their presence - has tempted the local government to legalise prostitution and gambling. Temporarily, of course!

But the dam's created a crime wave and Police Chief McCogin has been afforded no extra resources to help bail him out. Even the father he was deputy to was murdered a mere two months ago right outside The Frontier brothel managed by a certain Jim Smoke… who used to be known as Skinner Sweet.

Finally two Federal Agents have arrived to investigate, but they're not who they seem. They have connections to The Vassals Of The Morning Star, a covert organisation with personal grudges against vampires, and they're here just in time because, one by one, the four head honchos of the cartel building the dam are being desanguinated - which is a somewhat clinical term for 'slaughtered' but no less accurate for it. They're just not here by coincidence.

I cannot begin to tell you how cleverly, how surprisingly and how satisfyingly the various interwoven elements within the first of these two stories evolve, but also how neatly they tie in to book one. Then you wait until you get to the second sequence!

Cracking art too: the aerial view of the dam is as monumental as the project itself.

Vampire books have seemed far too anaemic to me since BLOOD + WATER (although I did love LIFE SUCKS for its mischief) but unlike so many others, this doesn't rely on the mere spectacle or gimmick, if you will, of the vampire, but is a fully fledged crime graphic novel that just happen to revolves around those orthodontically challenged.