Robots and Vamps

Reviewed by Matt

To my wife’s dismay, I have always been a person who is reading several books at once. She wonders how I can keep plot lines separate between novels. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is not. The reason I do this is that after so many pages of a certain book I need to take a break. So I switch to my other novel or two. So it takes a pretty special book for me to become completely absorbed into and ignore the other novels. The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe easily fits into this category. After I bought the novel at the bookstore on a Friday I read a few pages and I was totally hooked. It sucked me in the same way as Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of Wind did. In fact, I would consider The Sword-Edged Blonde to be The Name of Wind lite. Both involve strong main character building while the story follows them through tragic events that occurred early their lives but have huge consequences to the current adventure. The Sword-Edged Blonde is only about half as long but the emotional attachment to the main character, Eddie LaCrosse, is just as strong.  Plus, this book is just plain fun from the beginning to the end.

Eddie LaCrosse is sword jockey whose office is located above a tavern in the small town of Neceda. When someone needs help with a problem they hire a sword jockey to investigate or solve their problem. The story begins with Eddie being hired to track down a daughter of minor royalty who has either been kidnapped or has voluntary fallen in with a band of border ruffians. This is like shootin’ ducks in the barrel for Eddie and he easily tracks down the girl but before that situation is able to resolve itself he is pulled away to a more urgent case.

It seems that King has made a request for Eddie’s special skills in solving a puzzling murder. Since the King is Eddie’s childhood friend and Eddie used to date his sister, this is a personal request. Making it even more personal is that the King’s sister was brutally murdered while on Eddie’s watch. Eddie has not been back to kingdom since the horrible tragedy and is regretting digging up the old memories.

At first blush the case is pretty open and shut. The Queen is accused of killing her infant son. The Queen was found locked inside the nursery, passed out with the remains of her child all over the floor. No one else remembers anybody going into the nursery that night. The King is steadfast that his wife is innocent but the facts are not in favor of the Queen. We also learn the Queen has a mysterious past. The King had found her laying naked on a patch of ground while out hunting one day. The Queen has no memory of what happened prior to the day she was found.

When Eddie is allowed to interview the Queen he discovers that she reminds him of someone from his past. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place as to what really happened. The only problem is that Eddie’s thinks he knows what happened but the information is doled out slowly to the reader. At points, I thought I missed vital clues and had to re-read passages only to discover that wasn’t the case.

I only had a couple of minor quibbles with the novel. The first was use of real world measurements and terminology. For example, the characters are trying to track the Queen’s movements on the night of the murder.  They learn that it took the Queen from 10:00 to 10:30 to walk the nursery. The Queen was left alone in the nursery from 10:30 to 11:30. Using standard time was somewhat strange and kinda took me out of the story.

The other quibble is that the first half of the novel was somewhat slow and a little paint by the numbers. What I mean is that Eddie goes from point A to point B and uncovers a clue, then moves onto point C. But at about the half way point in the novel it moves very quickly and is as engaging as any novel I have read in long time. This is when we start to really explore Eddie’s past and how it relates to the case he is working on.

Alex Bledsoe is attempting to combine mystery noir and fantasy in his novel. At first this sounded a little hokey to me and was probably the main reason I held off reading it. This was my loss as the story is very powerful especially as the revelations continue to unfold until all is revealed at the end. Also, Mr. Bledsoe is able to move beyond the confines of the real world and interject fantasy elements into the story to keep the reader guessing.

This novel was a very delightful surprise and one I highly recommend. If Mr. Bledsoe can continue at this high level in the future volumes then this will become a cherished series for years to come.

Author’s website: …from down in Lucky Town

To discuss this book, please visit Robots and Vamps Book Club