This is one of my old favorites – just reread it so I thought I would write a review. “Blood Price” is the first of the “Blood Books”series. I would recommend them all – they form a good story arc. If you want to keep on going, Tanya Huff has follow on stories in the “Smoke and Ashes” series that I would also recommend.
This book falls into the category of “urban fantasy” but it is an early example of the genre as it was written in the last century. 1991 ! OMG. This book was written before a lot of things – before 9/11, ubiquitous cell phones, mobile apps and the total integration of the web with our daily lives…etc. The story does stand up exceptionally well given its age, but you do note that “lack of tech” impacts the telling of the tale; characters do not have instant access to each other as is often the case now.
The vampire in the novel is Henry Fitzroy, the bastard son of Henry VIII. Interestingly, this is a reasonable bit of story telling; Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond was in fact the bastard son of Henry VIII. He died at age 17 after (some say) an anemic wasting sickness. His death and burial were shrouded in mystery. So the story that he was actually turned by a vampire lover is not that much of a stretch…really. Not much. He is now almost 500 years old and he has mellowed…somewhat… with the years. He does not kill for his meals and he tends to feed during sexual encounters of various kinds with both sexes (always entertaining). He is a prosperous, handsome fellow, living in a penthouse in Toronto and making a good living writing “bodice rippers” under the pseudonym of “Elizabeth Fitzroy”. But he is bored…500 years and this is all there is? He currently has no close friends or lovers in which he can confide his…special nature…and this is troubling.
Enter Vicki Nelson, a Toronto homicide detective turned Private Investigator. Tall, blonde, tough, stubborn and intelligent, she suffers from retinitis pigmentosa which is causing her to go blind. It is the impending blindness that forced her out of the Police Force and away from her former partner (and lover) Mike Celluci. Vicki is bitter about her forced departure, Mike remains on the force, and he and Vicki have a complicated and tempestuous relationship.
A rash of hideous killings bring our three main characters together. The murders are so brutal that the press takes to calling them the work of a “vampire”. This understandably makes Henry rather nervous as he quite readily recalls the days when the peasants would storm his mansion with torches and pitchforks. He starts to investigate the true cause of the killings, as does Vicki on behalf of a client. After the two encounter each other at a murder scene, under some questionable circumstances, Henry has to work very hard to convince Vicki that while he IS a vampire, he is not the killer. Vicki, Henry team up to find out what is going on….. Mike gets dragged in as the reluctant cop and we meet Tony, the tough street kid who also becomes privy to Henry’s secret.
Huge Henry fan here. Love how he is written, there are always some erotic undertones and that just adds to the fun. Vicki can be a bit prickly, but she’s got a bit of a chip what with the blindness and all. As I said, huge fan of the books, suggest you read them all. They even made a very short lived TV series out of the books. Possibly the best part about these is that the vampire is the “sidekick” to Vicki the PI. He is not allowed to take himself too seriously.