Vampire Beat

by Vincent Courtney

The streets of Miami are hot with sleaze and sin.

And nobody knows those streets better than homicide detective Christopher Blaze. Or so he thought...

As an undercover cop, it was his job to bust the creatures of the night, not become one of them. But sometimes even the best cops turned and no one suspected, not their captains, not their girlfriends, not even their partners.

Now Chris Blaze is working the graveyard shift, hunting a centuries old serial killer leaving behind a trail of beautiful young victims. For another vampire is stalking the hot Miami night and this time Blaze has nothing to lose but his immortal soul!

Genres: Vampires, Horror, Fantasy

295 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1991

About the author

Vincent Courtney was born with a pen and paper in hand which made for a very uncomfortable delivery for his mother. He is the author of 18 books. He also created a writing course, "Scary Good Writing with Mr. Butt and Bonefish," used by teachers across the United States to teach their kids the parts of speech and how to write effective essays.

Reviews

[Maetta]

Christopher Blaze was just a driven homicide detective until a supernatural curse was put upon him by one of his collars. Still he wants to continue working as a homicide detective. He is paired up on the graveyard shift with Reggie who has problems of his own which follow him throughout the book. Lots of interconnections. Traditional vampire lore and a powerful perp/enemy.

[Chuck Byrd]

old school horror...pulpy fun

[Katherine]

Warning: This is a dumb book. And that's part of the fun in the beginning before the author apparently ran out of steam after setting things up in his descriptions about halfway through. The clichés are so thick it's funny. Blond, blue-eyed cop named Chris Blaze is cursed to become a vampire. Immediately falls in love with his doctor who is already engaged to a snob named Jonathan Wadsworth the third. She falls for Blaze. There's an African-American cop named Reggie Carver who we are reminded, repeatedly, is black. There's a racist cop who becomes a secondary antagonist to the evil vampire that shows up on the scene. This vampire wishes to make Sue, the doctor love interest, his bride. The racist cop goes insane and becomes the evil vampire's Renfield. A lot of to and froing as the good guys go to battle against the bad guys. A LOT of gruesomely described violence. A scene where the police captain tries to get information from a hard of hearing hospital receptionist. Fart jokes. Eventually Chris prevails by shapeshifting into the form of his lover, allowing himself to be "seduced" into the evil vampire's arms, and stabbing him in the heart with a stake. Why not. I almost felt like I was reading a novelization of a bad late 80s comic book.

Here: "Who will grow up to be the president and who will grow up to murder twenty people in a McDonald's parking lot?"

Was is really so necessary to use the n-word so often? Even if the evil crazy cop was racist did he really need to think it so much?

[Fangirl]

This is the first Christopher Blaze novel, a vampire detective, trying to do good. During my fan days for "Forever Knight", this was just the kind of book I enjoyed reading.

I am adding a review I wrote in 1992 from a book-diary that I just found again.

Suspensful, funny and witty, a real jewel of a book.
It is the story of Christopher Blaze, a cop, who gets turned into a vampire through a curse. He has to deal with his vampirism and tries to lead a normal life. He has himself transfered to the graveyard shift, working together with his new partner Reggie Carver, hunting an age-old vampire. Romance is also there, when Chris falls in love with Sue Catledge, a doctor in the emergency ward. In the end they get married and Chris and Reggie open a detective agency.
What was really amazing was the fact that my daughter called me and told me that she was reading this great book "Vampire Beat" at the moment. Nice coincidence.
It was a lot of fun to read and I really enjoyed it.

[Allison Simms]

You know you're in for something when the preface is the author apologizing for how terrible the book is. And apparently this was the new and improved version. I shudder to think of what the original was like if this could be seen as an improvement. This was absolutely dreadful. The characters were all one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The narration constantly took time out to be cruel towards the elderly, the obese, those who are not conventionally attractive, addicts, and the sex lives of women. The love story between Blaze and Sue had no basis in reality. We were constantly reminded that Reggie was black, while the rest of the characters being white was apparently the default, despite this taking place in Miami. And the villains were lazily created by making them racist, classist, and giddy at killing kittens and babies. I really cannot envision anyone liking this book.

I appreciate Courtney's preface. It is not easy to receive negative feedback. It takes a lot of honesty with yourself and others to confront your errors and work on improvement and growth. So, good for him. That being said, I don't think I'll be checking out any more of his books.

[Michelle]

It was an admittedly entertaining read. The content would have been surprising if you'd picked up the mass market paperback in an airport (some very explicit sexual scenes/language and gore that I wouldn't normally see in a book purchased from Hudson News). It also shows a very poor view of women and Black people, even considering when it was published. It was a quick read and it did exactly what it said it would do: provide me a wild story about a vampire cop.

[John]

I read this one when I was 14. It was a fun read.

[Christa Thoroski]

DNF after the 18th Bonerooonie

[Grady Hendrix]

Exactly what you want from a direct-to-video vampire cop movie circa 1993, only in the form of a book.

[DeCarabas]

It doesn't get much more cliche than this. Reminds me of any of half a dozen lighthearted vampire flicks - the vampire cop with a heart of gold; his wisecracking sidekick; Dracula and Renfield wannabes; the beautiful, competent doctor who miraculously transforms into a helpless damsel in distress halfway through the book, and her rich fiance who is revealed to be, what a surprise, a complete jerk... If that's the itch you need scratched, this'll do the job, though not particularly well and without bringing anything new to the table.

[Megan]

This was not a good book. My parents kept on making fun of me for continuing to read it after I started to complain, but it worked well for end-of-exams exhaustion. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the plot, but I just found the writing style to be repetitive and... well, not that good.

[Eva Hamrick]

Loved it but lost the book!

[Barbara Holford]

not too bad.