Curl up with some Halloween reading: the holiday can be so draining.

A cloud of bugs settled around me. Swathes of mosquitoes landed on my arm, tickled my skin, and took off. Why didn’t they bite? Professional courtesy, I guess.

Sometimes, as dear Doktor Freud paraphrased, a book is just a book.

And sometimes, “just a book” will delight. Today’s offerings aren’t collectible or rare. Just fun, endlessly inventive twists on a classic American genre:

Mario Acevedo, Four Felix Gomez novels (EOS/Rayo/Harper Collins). All softcover, trade size, good condition: The Nymphos of Rocky Flats (Rayo, 1st ed., 1st printing, 2006, ISBN  10-0-06-08336-2); X-Rated Blood Suckers (Rayo, 1st ed., 1st printing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-083327-5);  The Undead Kama Sutra (EOS, 1st ed, 1st printing, 2008, ISBN 978-0-06-083328-2); Jailbait Zombies (EOS, 1st ed., 1st printing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-156714-8). HBB price: $30 the set; $7.50 ea.

Felix Gomez returned from Iraq a vampire. Demobilized, Gomez set up shop as a PI in Denver.

In these four novels from Mario Acevedo’s series we get a character not unlike Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden- dealing with all manner of species and types- but with a remarkable, gourmet taste for hemoglobin, too.

Acevedo- An Army vet of Hispanic descent, like Gomez- and who is not the famed Guatemalan football forward- has reimagined the monster genre with considerable wit, flair and practicality (shape-shifting hurts like hell, and you have to get back to where you left your clothes under a bush, hoping they are still there, before you shift back). His website describes his work as

Urban fantasy. Mystery. Hard-boiled sketchiness. Lies, lies, and more lies. The truth only when mandated by law.

Even Acevedo’s Facebook page reads like a Raymond Chandler novel:

Flight attendant acted disappointed that I bought only one whiskey. She said you look like the type of guy who orders at least two.

I suffer from Stage 4 Don't Give a Rat's Ass.

Yet another comment from Jeff Shelby, the grease trap of the literary world.

And last February, Acevedo offered a bite of things to come:

The first draft of the new Felix Gomez book--Steampunk Banditos: Sex Slaves of Shark Island is ready for its baptismal blood letting. Skull vodka ready for medicinal purposes.

The Felix Gomez stories are a wink-wink throwback to the lurid pulps of the 1950s, promising way more sex than the text actually delivers. And his vampire’s fascination with blood types goes way beyond the four basic groups. He could give Robert Parker’s Wine Spectator reviews a run for their money (“After unzipping the hospital bag and letting it breath, I poured the ruby fluid into my goblet, inhaled, and took a sip. Jeez, the guy must live on asparagus!”*).

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* I made that up.

Henry Bemis Books is one man’s attempt to bring more diversity and quality to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg market of devoted readers starved for choices. Our website is at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com. Henry Bemis Books is also happy to entertain reasonable offers on items in inventory; for pricing on this or others items, kindly private message us. Shipping is always free to US locations; local buyers are welcome to drop by and pick up their purchases at our location off Peachtree Road in Northwest Charlotte if they like.

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