James, Dean: Decorated to Death

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Simon Kirby-Jones, like any other amateur detective worth his or her salt, has the fortunate habit of being in the right place at the wrong time. In the few months since he's moved from Texas to the quaint English village of Snupperton-Mumsley, Simon has stumbled over at least as many corpses as Murder She Wrote's Jessica Fletcher encounters on an average book tour. And like that grand dame of polite cozies, Simon too is a prolific writer, the author of well-respected historical biographies as well as two series of books, romances and mysteries, which he publishes pseudonymously. Enticing as his secret life of letters is, Simon's forays into lower-brow literature are not his only secret: he also happens to be a vampire, a gay vampire, in a world in which, however, medical advances have taken away much of the unpleasantness associated with that condition. Simon does try to limit his exposure to sunlight, and garlic remains a no-no, but he neither requires nor desires the blood-quaffing that has given generations of vampires a bad reputation. Or, at least, Simon never used to have such cravings....

In this third installment in Dean James' amusing series of vampire cozies, our gentlemanly undead protagonist finds himself in the uncomfortable position of gazing upon his acquaintances' pulsing neck veins with something approaching lust: the pills he takes twice daily to ward off his vampiric impulses seem to be failing--a delicious development. There is also, of course, a murder: Zeke Harwood, the flamboyant host of the popular decorating show Très Zeke, is bludgeoned to death while redoing the drawing room of nearby Blitherington Hall.

Decorated to Death offers readers another good mystery. For those coming to the series for the first time, the author does a good job for the most part of weaving the necessary background information into his narrative, though further explanation of the woman Simon refers to as his Nemesis would have served even repeat readers well. Fans of the series will find the book most interesting for Simon's unwilling flirtation with traditional vampirism, and for his more welcome flirtation with his personal assistant, young aristocrat Giles Blitherington.