Dark Moonlighting by Scott Haworth (Book Review)

About the Book

Nick Whittier, having been alive for six centuries, has had plenty of time to master three professions. In a typical week he works as a police officer, lawyer and doctor and still finds time to murder someone and drink their blood. He used to feel guilty about the killings, but now he restricts himself to only eating the worst members of society. Few people in Starside, Illinois seem to care about the untimely deaths of spam e-mailers, pushy Jehovah Witnesses and politicians. However, the barriers between Nick's three secret lives start to crumble when a mysterious man from his past arrives in town seeking revenge. Nick must move quickly to prevent the three women in his life, and the authorities who are hunting him, from discovering his terrible secret.

Dark Moonlighting is the first book in the humorous series. It explores four of the biggest clichés in popular culture, and it pokes fun at a number of popular television shows including Law & Order, Bones and House. It also takes a more realistic and amusing approach to the vampire cliché. For example, the average human has the equivalent of five Big Gulps worth of blood in their body. Nick takes twenty minutes to kill someone and, like the vampire bat, must immediately urinate afterwards.

My Review (4 / 5 Stars)

What if vampirism was caused by a good old fashioned virus? In that case, they wouldn't be demons, or demon possessed, and crosses and holy water wouldn't work on them. They'd be able to see their reflections just fine, but they wouldn't be able to shape-shift.

That's exactly the scenario postulated by Dark Moonlighting, a humorous story of a 600-year-old vampire trying to make it in the modern world. He only needs two hours sleep a night, so to pass the time, he works three different jobs.

I really enjoyed this book. It's funny, almost in the style of the Fat Vampire series by Johnny B. Truant, but it's not nearly as silly.

The writing is polished and the plot is fast-paced, but never too much. And there's lots of humour... although it took me a while to "get" the names of Nick's nemesis' henchwomen, once I did I couldn't stop laughing!

The ending's not really a cliffhanger, but it does pave the way nicely for the sequel. Which is definitely going on my to-read shelf.

If you like vampires, but hate Twilight, and you don't feel the need to take yourself too seriously, this is the book for you.

Click here to find out where you can pick up a copy.