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Black Knight Chronicles #4
Paint It Black
Goblins and Witches and Trolls . . . oh crap!
In the fourth installment of The Black Knight Chronicles, Jimmy Black is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and a darned fine pity party, serving the finest alcohol, when a call from his not-quite-girlfriend-cop forces him to sober up and stare at jawbones.
"Cold case" takes on a whole new meaning when vampire detectives risk life and limbs (literally) to connect a series of decades-old kidnappings in Charlotte with current missing persons cases. All clues lead through the veil of Faerieland to the legendary Goblin's Market, a magical bazaar where anything is available--for a price.
The boys can barely stay out of trouble in Charlotte. As fresh meat at The Market, they'll be lucky to survive the day.
In the fourth installment of The Black Knight Chronicles, Jimmy Black is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and a darned fine pity party, serving the finest alcohol, when a call from his not-quite-girlfriend-cop forces him to sober up and stare at jawbones.
"Cold case" takes on a whole new meaning when vampire detectives risk life and limbs (literally) to connect a series of decades-old kidnappings in Charlotte with current missing persons cases. All clues lead through the veil of Faerieland to the legendary Goblin's Market, a magical bazaar where anything is available--for a price.
The boys can barely stay out of trouble in Charlotte. As fresh meat at The Market, they'll be lucky to survive the day.
184 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2013
29 people are currently reading
176 people want to read
About the author
John G. Hartness
191 books592 followersJohn G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love.
He is also the award-winning author of the urban fantasy series The Black Knight Chronicles (Bell Bridge Books), the Bubba the Monster Hunter comedic horror series, the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter dark fantasy series, and many other projects.
In 2016, John teamed up with a pair of other publishing industry ne’er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a small press dedicated to publishing the best of genre fictions “misfit toys.”
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and playing Magic: the Gathering.
For free short stories and to follow his activities and appearances on his newsletter, follow this link - http://eepurl.com/fV4In
He is also the award-winning author of the urban fantasy series The Black Knight Chronicles (Bell Bridge Books), the Bubba the Monster Hunter comedic horror series, the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter dark fantasy series, and many other projects.
In 2016, John teamed up with a pair of other publishing industry ne’er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a small press dedicated to publishing the best of genre fictions “misfit toys.”
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and playing Magic: the Gathering.
For free short stories and to follow his activities and appearances on his newsletter, follow this link - http://eepurl.com/fV4In
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 12, 2013
http://koeur.wordpress.com/2013/11/12...
3.7/5.0
Publisher Description: In the fourth installment of The Black Knight Chronicles, Jimmy Black is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and a darned fine pity party, serving the finest alcohol, when a call from his not-quite-girlfriend-cop forces him to sober up and stare at jawbones.
Review: Whew does that cover stink or what? It looks like The old Hardy Boys were replaced with a retarded vampire. The Hardy Boys covers are still better.
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This is the fourth in this particular series. I had not read any of the prior novels so my main focus was if the novel could stand alone without the support from the previous stories. The author did a really good job referencing a prior instances in order to support the current story line without dragging it down. As a stand alone novel in a series, you can get right up to speed without slowing down for the usual lengthy back story.
The main character is a smartass vampire whom doesn’t really render insightful witticisms, more like this constant glibness that really gets tiring after awhile. The Trolls and goblins were really well done. You had this overt and stilted verbosity from the Trolls that would turn on a dime into this highly shrewd and intelligent creature. The goblin chef was aptly described and did not fail to entertain.
Abby, the hotty vamp, is really good. Her pointed comments and self-reliant and independent behavior is refreshing input into the so-so dialogue of Jimmy Black. Lilith, a succubus that is older than dirt, also injects interesting commentary into an otherwise flat diatribe. It is almost like the author tried too hard with Jimmy Black, to make him into this free-wheeling, witty, devil-may-care, undead vampire. What you get is this glib asshat who doesn’t really give a crap (or so you think) about anything, then all of a sudden cares about Sabrina and tries to be a father figure to Abby. He is at once indifferent then maudlin, vengeful then remorseful and glib then self-aware. Definitely not emotionally consistent to the extent that he is a believable character.
There were some fall downs with regard to firearm ballistics, firearm function and Sabrina’s mortal physical abilities to be on par or better with an undead vampires super strength and speed. The author states that the semi auto smith and Wesson gets cocked as Sabrina comes down the stairs. She first must rack the slide on a semi-auto 1911, then drop the hammer in order to re-cock it for live fire in this particular scene. In the case of the SW MP, there is no hammer to cock. Since Smith and Wesson does not make a .40 1911 series pistol, then I assume that Sabrina is carrying the M&P or one of its variants. The ballistics mentioned are not supportable either. “These cold iron bullets tumble worse than silver. Makes them drop six inches over ten yards.” While silver is not as dense as lead, silver still would accept the rifling of any barrel as “both lead and copper are common bullet materials.” The idea that silver bullets will “tumble” could only happen if the diameter of the bullet was not increased to accommodate the inherent shrinkage of silver when cast. Thus the use of a custom mold to cast silver bullets. If you’re going to use firearms in a novel, then be familiar with ballistics and the firearms basic functions.
If you like a really fun read and a good story-line with shallow character development, get this novel. It is at once entertaining and absorbing.
September 1, 2015
Series started slow, and fizzeled out for me. MC's patronizing behaviour and general cluelessness became too much to bear.
August 30, 2016
If you like supernatural reading and vampires, you will love this series.
February 9, 2022
I quite enjoyed this instalment in the Black Knight Chronicles series.
Another round of Jimmy and his friend fumbling their way through a supernatural mystery. I do like that there is a tiny little bit less fumbling now as Jimmy is becoming a little bit more mature. The development of his supernatural powers and his understanding of his capabilities is still really, really slow though.
What starts of as a seemingly ordinary case of human remains with some foul play attached to them quickly develops into another dive into the supernatural world. This time to the Goblin’s Market which is about as fun and dangerous as one can expect.
Of course Jimmy meets a bunch of new creatures, some friendly (although here friendly just means they have no immediate plans to eat you) and some not so friendly. Unfortunately the author must have been smoking some mushrooms or something when he wrote part of the book. What the f… kind of name is Martifluousyntherianthemum Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong for instance? Maybe he thought it was funny but I think it is just silly.
Anyway, Jimmy and Co manages to navigate the perils of the market either by hiding or by applying a healthy dose of violence. Of course they get beaten up a fair amount as well. Turns out Goblins as well as a few other supernatural creatures are quite nasty. Especially their idea of a well balanced diet. There is an insanely disturbed human in the mix as well. But when all else fails, well, let’s just say that having a faeire queen and a dragon in one’s quick dial list can be a life saver… literally.
We get to know some more about this highly underused sword of Jimmy as well. When I first read I wasn’t to sure about this twist. I felt it was a bit over the top but in the end I settled for thinking it was somewhat cool after all. Especially how it was revealed. I just hope the author will go somewhere good with this though. After all, with Jimmy mostly fumbling around it is a bit like watching a kid play with nukes.
I do hope that Jimmy gets a grip and starts to grow power-wise though. The author have splattered the phrase “faster than a vampire fast” or something similar all over these books. For crying out loud, right know everything except possibly the mailman is faster than Jimmy-vampire-fast.
Still, to me, this was a fun read. I like Jimmy & Co even though it is a lot of fumbling around and I quite like the dialogue, the action, even if Jimmy gets beat up a lot and the story is not too shabby so I guess I’ll stick to this series for a while longer.
Another round of Jimmy and his friend fumbling their way through a supernatural mystery. I do like that there is a tiny little bit less fumbling now as Jimmy is becoming a little bit more mature. The development of his supernatural powers and his understanding of his capabilities is still really, really slow though.
What starts of as a seemingly ordinary case of human remains with some foul play attached to them quickly develops into another dive into the supernatural world. This time to the Goblin’s Market which is about as fun and dangerous as one can expect.
Of course Jimmy meets a bunch of new creatures, some friendly (although here friendly just means they have no immediate plans to eat you) and some not so friendly. Unfortunately the author must have been smoking some mushrooms or something when he wrote part of the book. What the f… kind of name is Martifluousyntherianthemum Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong for instance? Maybe he thought it was funny but I think it is just silly.
Anyway, Jimmy and Co manages to navigate the perils of the market either by hiding or by applying a healthy dose of violence. Of course they get beaten up a fair amount as well. Turns out Goblins as well as a few other supernatural creatures are quite nasty. Especially their idea of a well balanced diet. There is an insanely disturbed human in the mix as well. But when all else fails, well, let’s just say that having a faeire queen and a dragon in one’s quick dial list can be a life saver… literally.
We get to know some more about this highly underused sword of Jimmy as well. When I first read I wasn’t to sure about this twist. I felt it was a bit over the top but in the end I settled for thinking it was somewhat cool after all. Especially how it was revealed. I just hope the author will go somewhere good with this though. After all, with Jimmy mostly fumbling around it is a bit like watching a kid play with nukes.
I do hope that Jimmy gets a grip and starts to grow power-wise though. The author have splattered the phrase “faster than a vampire fast” or something similar all over these books. For crying out loud, right know everything except possibly the mailman is faster than Jimmy-vampire-fast.
Still, to me, this was a fun read. I like Jimmy & Co even though it is a lot of fumbling around and I quite like the dialogue, the action, even if Jimmy gets beat up a lot and the story is not too shabby so I guess I’ll stick to this series for a while longer.
November 18, 2025
The vampire PIs are back, when bones turn up that cannot be explained, the case leads to the Goblin market and disappearances going back decades.
July 13, 2014
People are going missing and have been for some time – seemingly without a trace until some jawbones were found. But they’re too old – they definitely match the victims but are years older than they should be.
Woo-woo is afoot and between the changing age of the bones and troll involvement, all clues point to fairy land, and the dangerous and alien goblin market. Clearly careful, subtle investigation is needed.
Such a shame that James and Greg don’t do subtle or careful.
I liked this book. It was fun. It had some hilarious moments, it had some pretty exciting moments. It had action and adventure and weirdness writ large. The story was fun, it covered a huge swath of the world, it brought up some interesting points about the relationship between the worlds and gave the characters some room to grow. It had a lot of good there
And it had a lot of, well, basically a whacky romp through fairy land. The guys (backed up to a lesser extent by the supporting cast) rampage their way through “investigation” which involves breaking things and hitting things until answers fall on them or people given them answers just to make them go away and stop causing trouble. This is a form of “investigation” that annoys me so much in Urban Fantasy and I was getting a little irritated with it here – except it was blatantly lamp shaded. James openly admits that his plan is basically to hit things and hope he finds answers doing it and it is presented as exactly as silly as it sounds. And it doesn’t work. Oh they make some progress but at nearly every step of the way of their “let’s rampage and get answers” they run into something bigger, stronger or smarter than them that is less inclined to tolerate their nonsense. The greatest challenge of the book is fought through the mind and not with vampire might. Sabrina is there to provide sense and rescue and they rely heavily on the patronage of the fairy queen they earned in the past to dig themselves out of the foolish hole they’ve dug
They do get answers, some of those answers do come from their whacky and ill advised rampage. But that rampage is always very clear as being ill advised. Especially compared to the very efficient investigation they perform later (though I do think that Greg’s computer skills are morphing into a slightly ridiculous Deus Ex).
The problem is that a large part of the book is a rampage through fairy land (and I’m not a fan of fairy land in this series anyway, it feels like an excuse for the author to just throw every random thing into the story). It wasn’t a bad storyline, but it also didn’t add a whole lot of anything and didn’t exactly thrill me.
Much more awesome are Sabrina and James relationship – also good but undeveloped was the moral conflict of James’s vigilantism which was a little brushed over. I think I’d like it poked more but at the same time I can understand why absolutely no-one wanted to speak out in protest against what James had done.
On an odd comment – I actually like that James is stepping up a little more this book as well, even if I don’t quite see why the fae queen should see him as so special. While I’ve always appreciated a protagonist who wasn’t the super-duper-specialist-most-powerful-of-them-all, in the last couple of books I’ve also been doubting just what role James serves in the story with Greg, Sabrina and even Abby having talent sets to bring and him not really bringing a whole lot.
Inclusionwise – we have Bobby, a Black man who provides them with blood who has a brief cameo appearance and Stephen, a gay man, shows up for a brief cameo when his woo-woo is needed. Very background.
I’d still like a toning down of references to Greg’s weight every 5 seconds. While a fat vampire is certainly a novelty, constantly harping on about it is not. I do like Greg and James’s conflict particularly James finally snapping and growing tired of being blamed all the time – in a genre that LOVES protagonist guilt and angst, it was nice to see
Read More
Woo-woo is afoot and between the changing age of the bones and troll involvement, all clues point to fairy land, and the dangerous and alien goblin market. Clearly careful, subtle investigation is needed.
Such a shame that James and Greg don’t do subtle or careful.
I liked this book. It was fun. It had some hilarious moments, it had some pretty exciting moments. It had action and adventure and weirdness writ large. The story was fun, it covered a huge swath of the world, it brought up some interesting points about the relationship between the worlds and gave the characters some room to grow. It had a lot of good there
And it had a lot of, well, basically a whacky romp through fairy land. The guys (backed up to a lesser extent by the supporting cast) rampage their way through “investigation” which involves breaking things and hitting things until answers fall on them or people given them answers just to make them go away and stop causing trouble. This is a form of “investigation” that annoys me so much in Urban Fantasy and I was getting a little irritated with it here – except it was blatantly lamp shaded. James openly admits that his plan is basically to hit things and hope he finds answers doing it and it is presented as exactly as silly as it sounds. And it doesn’t work. Oh they make some progress but at nearly every step of the way of their “let’s rampage and get answers” they run into something bigger, stronger or smarter than them that is less inclined to tolerate their nonsense. The greatest challenge of the book is fought through the mind and not with vampire might. Sabrina is there to provide sense and rescue and they rely heavily on the patronage of the fairy queen they earned in the past to dig themselves out of the foolish hole they’ve dug
They do get answers, some of those answers do come from their whacky and ill advised rampage. But that rampage is always very clear as being ill advised. Especially compared to the very efficient investigation they perform later (though I do think that Greg’s computer skills are morphing into a slightly ridiculous Deus Ex).
The problem is that a large part of the book is a rampage through fairy land (and I’m not a fan of fairy land in this series anyway, it feels like an excuse for the author to just throw every random thing into the story). It wasn’t a bad storyline, but it also didn’t add a whole lot of anything and didn’t exactly thrill me.
Much more awesome are Sabrina and James relationship – also good but undeveloped was the moral conflict of James’s vigilantism which was a little brushed over. I think I’d like it poked more but at the same time I can understand why absolutely no-one wanted to speak out in protest against what James had done.
On an odd comment – I actually like that James is stepping up a little more this book as well, even if I don’t quite see why the fae queen should see him as so special. While I’ve always appreciated a protagonist who wasn’t the super-duper-specialist-most-powerful-of-them-all, in the last couple of books I’ve also been doubting just what role James serves in the story with Greg, Sabrina and even Abby having talent sets to bring and him not really bringing a whole lot.
Inclusionwise – we have Bobby, a Black man who provides them with blood who has a brief cameo appearance and Stephen, a gay man, shows up for a brief cameo when his woo-woo is needed. Very background.
I’d still like a toning down of references to Greg’s weight every 5 seconds. While a fat vampire is certainly a novelty, constantly harping on about it is not. I do like Greg and James’s conflict particularly James finally snapping and growing tired of being blamed all the time – in a genre that LOVES protagonist guilt and angst, it was nice to see
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May 31, 2015
Nerd vampires who aren't shiny. Nuff said. While the antagonism the two friends still have after 17 years is getting a bit silly, the fact is neither one has completely grown up so it works. Though they are getting there, recognizing that terrible word responsibility and slowly stopping the internal fight against who they are. With lots of trademark nerd humor and a complete dismissal of making the world pretty, this is just plain fun.
November 15, 2013
OK the pair of geeky vampire detectives are back! They are in for on hell of a time, a serial killer is on the loose and may still have a pair of victims held against their will, The full gang of characters is back for this fun adventure.
If you read the other books in this series then you know what you are in for, if not, start with book 1!
If you read the other books in this series then you know what you are in for, if not, start with book 1!
September 27, 2015
I kind of feel like these books are getting shorter with every new release. That said, this one was still an entertaining read, and even avoided the usual power creep of ever-bigger-baddies. I do feel that maybe the author has a bit of an issue with sexist language and attitudes, but it's nothing too horrible
October 29, 2013
While I enjoyed this book it seemed to go over a lot of old ground. There are few things that move our vampires plots and lives forward but this seemed like a filler story more than anything else.
November 6, 2014
More fun with the geek boys in black!
January 21, 2014
Another great adventure for the guys and not one they particularly wanted to be a part of but with their usual style Mr Hartness has created another book full of nerdy vampire goodness.
March 4, 2015
Fun series
Fun series to read with great characters. Can't wait to see where it goes next. Looking forward to the next
Fun series to read with great characters. Can't wait to see where it goes next. Looking forward to the next
June 16, 2015
Good stuff
Dresden as a vampire. But so far all of the books have been pretty good. They need to be longer though.
Dresden as a vampire. But so far all of the books have been pretty good. They need to be longer though.
July 8, 2015
It was good enough that I ordered the next book in the series.
June 6, 2016
Love it!
I'd say if you like Dresden and PI John Taylor from the Night side series, you are going to love Jimmy Black and Greg Knightwood. Such a great series!
I'd say if you like Dresden and PI John Taylor from the Night side series, you are going to love Jimmy Black and Greg Knightwood. Such a great series!
January 13, 2014
again I LOVE Jimmy he is such a smart-ass!!
July 1, 2014
A pair of bones in Charlotte leads to the Goblin Market in faerie.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews