Lee Killough

The Garreth Mikalian trilogy (Blood Walk, Blood Links and Blood Hunt), and Wilding Nights. All are paranormal police procedurals, the Garreth Mikalians featuring a lone vampire cop, Wilding Nights a werewolf cop and her pack, many of whom are cops too. I felt the Garreth Mikalians worked better (and were more believable) than Wilding Nights (probably why there's only been the one).

Effectively they're all hunts for serial killers with the added complication of keeping the paranormal secret. Blood Walk is the hunt for the vampire that turned Garreth Mikalian, Blood Links is the hunt for a killer who believes that the vampire is around still, and Blood Links is the hunt for a wanna-be vampire, Wilding Nights is the hunt for a killer that turns out to be a rogue werewolf (without revealing the existence of werewolves). All are set in the US - the Garreth Mikalians are set in San Francisco and Kansas, Wilding Nights in a Texas Gulf Coast town.

Enjoyable if you like that kind of genre cross-over. I assume the procedural bits are relatively accurate! They seemed to hang together but I'm not an expert on US police procedure.… (more)

While I was reading this I kept thinking of James Herbert's book NOBODY TRUE. The premise for each book is about the same: person dies, their spirit / soul stays on the Earth and must solve the mystery of who killed the person's body. However, while Herbert's book was more moody and serious, Killough's book is more gripping and fun. The language reads as more comfortable. Events transpire as you might expect. There are even several modern references such as to Harry Potter. But then more interestingly, Cole (the dead person) is able to discover more powers. Things such as manifesting himself to others or taking over a body or teleporting to other locations. It was probably these powers which made the book more interesting. The fantasy of being able to have special abilities that others do not. It naturally appealed to the comic book fan within me. In total though, KILLER KARMA is an extremely fun read and one that I would highly recommend.… (more)