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Blood Hunt #1
Blood Hunt
Homicide detective Garreth Mikaelian searches for a murderer stalking the streets of San Francisco, but when he corners her, he finds to his horror, that she is a vampire who intends to make him one of her victims
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
3 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Lee Killough
52 books15 followersLee Killough has been storytelling since the age of four or five, when she began making up her own bedtime stories. So when she discovered science fiction and mysteries about age eleven, she began writing her own science fiction and mysteries. Because her great fear was running out of these by reading everything her small hometown library had. It took her late husband Pat Killough, though, years later, to convince her to try selling her work. Her first published stories were science fiction and her short story, "Symphony For a Lost Traveler", earned a Hugo Award nomination in 1985.
She used to joke that she wrote SF because she dealt with non-humans every day...spending twenty-seven years as chief technologist in the Radiology Department at Kansas State University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital before retiring to write full-time.
Because she loves both SF and mysteries and hated choose between the two genres, her work combines them. Except for one fantasy, The Leopard’s Daughter, most of her novels are mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference for supernatural detectives: vampire, werewolves, even a ghost. She has set her procedurals in the future, on alien words, and in the country of dark fantasy. Her best known detective is vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian, of Blood Hunt, Bloodlinks, and Blood Games. Five of her novels and a novella are now available as e-books and she is editing more to turn into e-books.
Lee makes her home in Manhattan, Kansas, with her book-dealer husband Denny Riordan, a spunky terrier mix, and a house crammed with books.
She used to joke that she wrote SF because she dealt with non-humans every day...spending twenty-seven years as chief technologist in the Radiology Department at Kansas State University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital before retiring to write full-time.
Because she loves both SF and mysteries and hated choose between the two genres, her work combines them. Except for one fantasy, The Leopard’s Daughter, most of her novels are mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference for supernatural detectives: vampire, werewolves, even a ghost. She has set her procedurals in the future, on alien words, and in the country of dark fantasy. Her best known detective is vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian, of Blood Hunt, Bloodlinks, and Blood Games. Five of her novels and a novella are now available as e-books and she is editing more to turn into e-books.
Lee makes her home in Manhattan, Kansas, with her book-dealer husband Denny Riordan, a spunky terrier mix, and a house crammed with books.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Want to read
July 2, 2016
No idea if this is supposed to be any good, but I couldn't pass up that cheesy/awesome cover. Plus, it's about a vampire cop in 1980s San Francisco, which is kinda cool I guess.
August 1, 2019
True to the title, Blood Hunt, features Garreth Mikaelian, a police officer turned vampire on the hunt for the timeless beauty of the night who sunk her fangs deep into his throat in search of companionship to end her dark and isolated eternal solitude.
For Mikaelian, the endless dark holds no allure nor does the womanly pleasures of the seductress who turned him. With any semblance of normalcy gone, he turns his sights on a blood thirsty quest for vengeance in search of the solitude which had evaded him in his previously life as a middle grade police officer.
More crime fiction than horror, Blood Hunt, really is a police procedural with supernatural elements (vampires) thrown in. Largely on the peripheral, the bloodsuckers play a supporting role that isn't essential to the story proper. You could easily substitute the vampire element for a criminal on the run being pursued by a rouge cop and get the same result.
The book was 'ok', there's nothing new from ether crime nor horror and the story did meander a little during Mikaelian's road trip/blood hunt, however, I generally found myself turning the pages fast enough to see how everything played out.
My rating: 3/5 stars.
For Mikaelian, the endless dark holds no allure nor does the womanly pleasures of the seductress who turned him. With any semblance of normalcy gone, he turns his sights on a blood thirsty quest for vengeance in search of the solitude which had evaded him in his previously life as a middle grade police officer.
More crime fiction than horror, Blood Hunt, really is a police procedural with supernatural elements (vampires) thrown in. Largely on the peripheral, the bloodsuckers play a supporting role that isn't essential to the story proper. You could easily substitute the vampire element for a criminal on the run being pursued by a rouge cop and get the same result.
The book was 'ok', there's nothing new from ether crime nor horror and the story did meander a little during Mikaelian's road trip/blood hunt, however, I generally found myself turning the pages fast enough to see how everything played out.
My rating: 3/5 stars.
February 25, 2022
I was asked to identify a 1980's vampire detective novel which initially threw me, because all I could come up with was stuff from the 90's or later when Urban fantasy became a thing. Elrod's vampire files didn't start until 1990, forever knight was '92. After a bit of digging I found Lee Killough's Blood Hunt trilogy - the first volume here came out in 1987. While reading it now, it feels like treading very familiar territory - but looking at it in context, It appears to be the first vampire detective novel - obviously we'd had paranormal investigators previously - Kolchack comes to mind, but an actual detective who is a vampire? I can't find an earlier example.
Gareth Mikaelian is an Irish-American homicide detective who finds that the killer he is pursuing is a seductive female vampire. She turns him. He tries to go on with his life as a cop drinking animal blood, but finds the inability to enter homes without being invited and aversion to garlic too much of a liability. He quits the force and goes after the vampire to bring her to justice.
I loved this one, its really fast paced pulp detective fiction with a vampire twist. At the end of this you wonder what Gareth will do next - certainly scope for an ongoing paranormal detective series.
Gareth Mikaelian is an Irish-American homicide detective who finds that the killer he is pursuing is a seductive female vampire. She turns him. He tries to go on with his life as a cop drinking animal blood, but finds the inability to enter homes without being invited and aversion to garlic too much of a liability. He quits the force and goes after the vampire to bring her to justice.
I loved this one, its really fast paced pulp detective fiction with a vampire twist. At the end of this you wonder what Gareth will do next - certainly scope for an ongoing paranormal detective series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2019
I loved every single thing about this book. It is one I absolutely could not put down. The author reminds us what amazing writing and a true supernatural mystery looks like in a little over 319 pages. What a breath of fresh air in a world of alpha male and bad boy vampires!
May 27, 2023
The detective aspect of this story is pretty good, even if it's not terribly gripping or high-stakes, but the protagonist's (and the book's) extremely Reagany views of civic virtue and black-and-white morality put me off quite a bit by the end.
June 7, 2018
The book was well written and I'm sure will be enjoyed by vampire fans.
September 14, 2012
Unlike any vampire read ever. I liked it and am reading the next book in the series. I borrowed this book from Amazon Prime.
April 9, 2012
Liked the book. Look forward to the next one.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews