Polterheist by Laura Resnick

2012 has been a good year for fans of Laura Resnick's whacky accidental supernatural detective Esther Diamond. The first book in the series (Disappearing Nightly) was rereleased a few months ago, and now Polterheist came out on schedule in November.

The book is seasonal and fittingly for the time of year it was released the season it deals with is Christmas. After the closure of the play Esther was working on; The Vampyre, the struggling actress couldn't get her regular casual work as a singing waitress at mob cafe Bella Stella and so was forced to take a job as a Jewish Christmas elf called Dreidel at the multi denominational Solsticeland in a large city department store.

Things are okay, well as okay as dealing with screaming children and demanding parents can be for an elf in an uncomfortable costume, until employees start going missing and Esther is attacked and threatened by a mechanical singing tree.

If you haven't read the Esther Diamond's before then that all sounds pretty weird. If you have read any of the books then it's all par for the course for Esther.

The books aren't really about the whodunnit anymore, that's certainly still part of it, but it's the comedy that keeps me coming back. This one is full of pointed and highly amusing comments regarding Christmas from the point of view of someone in retail.

Being the fifth book in the series gave Laura Resnick the chance to get a number of characters from previous adventures (the drag queen Satsy, ex boyfriend Jeff and my favourite side character Gambello family hitman Lucky Battistuzzi), as well as regulars Max and detective Connor Lopez.

There are a number of highlights in the book, but my personal favourite was Esther meeting Lopez's parents for the first time.

Esther goes from strength to strength and will no doubt win new fans with her performance in Polterheist. Very eager for the next instalment of her adventures in Misfortune Cookie.

Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick

Before reviewing Laura Resnick’s Disappearing Nightly I need to give a quick explanation as to why despite having enjoyed the previous Esther Diamond adventures I’m only reading the first one now in 2012, rather then in 2006 when it was originally published.

Disappearing Nightly first came out in 2005, and was published by Luna. For various reasons Luna and Esther never really clicked, and she didn’t find another home until DAW picked up the series a few years later. The series has gone from strength to strength under DAW, beginning with Doppelgangster, continuing with Unsympathetic Magic and last years Vamparazzi (I believe the 5^th book; Polterheist, is due out later this year). However Laura Resnick didn’t get the publishing rights back to Disappearing Nightly until fairly recently, then DAW had to repackage it to fit with the rest of the series, and so it didn’t find it’s way to me until a couple of weeks ago.

I’d always been eager to read Disappearing Nightly, as although Esther quickly recapped the events from the book in Doppelgangster, this was where the actress met her friend, the 350 year old European magician Max Zadok, and her on again, off again love interest; Connor Lopez. Both Max and Connor are pretty major parts of Esther life and her adventures so seeing how they first came onto the scene is important for any fan of the books.

Esther was happily working as a wood nymph, understudying the lead actress, in an off Broadway (way off) production called Sorcerer! when the lead actress, a former teenie pop star with the ridiculous stage name of Golly Gee (Lopez refers to her as Gosh Darn at one point, and I didn’t buy his explanation that he was only joking), quite literally disappears. Because Esther is her understudy, and therefore gains from the disappearance she’s considered a suspect, and then she starts receiving warning notes, cryptically signed MZ.

Other people start disappearing, and before Esther can say abracadabra, she finds herself teamed up with Max, a team of highly enthusiastic drag queens, a conjuring cowboy and his perky daughter and a young banker who has been rail roaded into the financial industry by his family, when all he really wants to do is perform magic. They all think they’re helping. Lopez is of the opinion that what they’re doing is hindering his investigation and if he could find grounds he’d arrest the lot of them, except maybe Esther, who he wants to date.   

Because I’d already read the later books in the series I already knew who was behind the disappearances and roughly why, so the mystery of trying to work out whodunit wasn’t there in this one. It didn’t however detract from my enjoyment of the book. The fun of the Esther Diamonds is with Esther herself and the somewhat combative relationship she enjoys with Lopez. He was better drawn in this than I feel he has been in some of the later books, in this one he wasn’t afraid to make gentle fun of Esther and being openly disbelieving of her, not something he still does. Considering that some of the seemingly less likely things she suggests actually come to pass, this may be why he isn’t as skeptical of her now.

The books have a knack of introducing one off characters that intrigue me, this time it was Max’s boss, the Anglo Indian Lysander Singh from that well known hotbed of evil; Altoona, PA. He kept reminding me of the officious Nigel from The Watchers Council in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 5, Episode 12, Checkpoint. Oh yes, I know my Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It was highly amusing to watch Max and Esther simply ignore most of what he said and blunder on regardless. Like Lucky Battistuzzi (Doppelgangster) it’s unlikely he’ll appear again, but he is there waiting in the wings if the author decides he’s required.

The Esther Diamonds are a little hard to classify, they’re definitely urban fantasy and the Lopez/Esther relationship kind of strays into romance territory, although there’s not a lot of it. The author herself refers to them as comedic urban fantasy, so I’ll go with that, I kind of like it as sub genre classification actually.

I think I’ve said this with nearly every review I’ve done of the books, but no one seems to be paying attention to me, so I’ll close by saying it again. These books are simply screaming to be made into a TV show. Someone please make this happen!      

Vamparazzi

Vamparazzi is the 4th Esther Diamond book by Laura Resnick.

Vamparazzi finds the actress starring in an off Broadway play based on John Polidori’s seminal piece of vampire fiction The Vampyre. The main reason for the show’s existence is it’s star Daemon Ravel, who claims to be an actual vampire. His crazed fans also surround the theatre before and after performances, and have been dubbed by Esther and her co-star; the improbably named Leishneudel Drsydale, as vamparazzi, hence the book’s title.

It’s not a great play and working on it has drawbacks, the aforementioned vamparazzi, Ravel himself, not to mention the sleazy tabloid journalist who is writing about him; Al Tarr, and then there is the other actress in the show; the foul mouthed, hot tempered ingénue; Mad Rachel. However it is 8 weeks of paid work and Esther has taken a liking to Leischneudel, to the extent of seeing if her agent; Thackeray Shackleton, will sign him as a client.

After a particularly trying performance Esther finds her on again, off again boyfriend, NYPD detective Conor Lopez in her dressing room. Lopez is messy and unshaven and very cagey about who he really is. Esther soon finds out that he’s working undercover, and has come to see her out of worry. One of the vamparazzi was found exsanguinated, and due to a run in with the woman outside the theatre Esther is a suspect. No one actually thinks she did it, the main suspect is Ravel. The man says he’s a vampire, he keeps bottles of what look suspiciously like human blood in his dressing room refrigerator, and he actually bit Esther one night during a performance.

To be fair to Esther she didn’t try to get involved in this one, but circumstances drew her into it. Once she informed her friend the 350 year old European magician Maximilan Zadok about what was happening, it was a foregone conclusion that Esther would be right in the middle of things. One of the occupations on Max’s extensive CV is vampire hunter, it also explains why he’s so wary about Lithuanians.

Part of the fun of any book like this is working out ‘whodunnit’ (something I suck at), and it was really hard in Vamparazzi, because it seemed at times as if Esther was the only cast member who wasn’t a vampire. The book also exploded a few myths about vampires. According to Max there are three types and only one of them is truly blood thirsty.

One thing that hurt the previous book; Unsympathetic Magic, was Laura Resnick’s tendency towards extensive exposition. That’s still present, but she’s toned it down considerably and it doesn’t affect the flow of the narrative the way it did in Unsympathetic Magic. For readers looking for more romance between Lopez and Esther, they’d come away disappointed, there are moments, but romance is largely absent. That leads me to my next point.

The Esther Diamond’s are rather hard to classify. The first of the books Disappearing Nightly (I haven’t read this yet, still waiting for DAW to reissue it), was published by a romance publisher (Luna, who were part of Harlequin), and they decided not to pick it up as a series, from what I’ve heard, it didn’t really seem to fit with their line. On the face of it, they look like straight Paranormal Romance, but they’re decidedly light on the romance, so fit more into the Urban Fantasy category, the two do, at times, tend to be interchangeable. The best way I can describe what the Esther Diamond’s is this: if Janet Evanovich’s bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, were a few years younger and working as an actress in New York and wound up investigating things of a supernatural bent, then she’d be Esther Diamond.

One of my criticisms of the two earlier books (Doppelgangster and Unsympathetic Magic) was that Conor Lopez was too good to be true. He becomes a little more believable and acts more realistically in Vamparazzi, although he’s not in it as much as he was in the earlier novels. There was also no wiseguy action, so we didn’t get to see Lucky Batistuzzi from Doppelgangster return (seriously, he rocked), although I did like Leischneudel, and being in the acting game there’s a fair chance readers could see him again. They’re light, easy to read fun.

The next Esther adventure: Polterheist (I do love the titles) is due out next year, and hopefully by then DAW will have brought out Disappearing Nightly and I’ll know the full Esther Diamond story.

Unsympathetic Magic

Unsympathetic Magic is the 3rd of Laura Resnick’s Esther Diamond urban fantasy series (still waiting for DAW to release Disappearing Nightly). As I had a lot of fun with the 2nd of these: Doppelgangster, I was looking forward to reading Unsympathetic Magic.

It starts off very promisingly. During Doppelgangster, a doppelganger of Esther managed to land her a guest role as a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute on controversial cop show The Dirty Thirty (it’s part of the Crime & Punishment stable of shows. This is obviously a gentle dig at Law & Order and it’s 86 spin offs). While filming one night in Harlem the lead actor gets sick and Esther heads off after the crew to get something to eat. Along the way she encounters a sword wielding young vigilante, a zombie and 2 gargoyles. This causes her to try and get help and as she’s dressed for the character of Jilly C-Note she winds up getting arrested. After calling in order; the show, her agent, her friend Max and failing to get an answer she calls her ex-boyfriend detective Conor Lopez. This is pretty much life as normal for Esther.

Lopez obligingly bails Esther out and doesn’t believe a word of her story, he never does, but a little investigation proves that the incident does need looking into. Having lost her keys in the struggle with the gargoyle,s Esther is locked out of her apartment, so goes to see her friend; the 350 year old magician Maximilian Zadok. The words mystery and magic are like a red flag to a bull where Max is concerned and Esther soon finds herself at Livingston Foundation, a charitable organisation for underprivileged youth set up by billionaire Martin Livingston. Since Livingston’s death the foundation/cultural centre has been managed by his widow; Catherine. The zombie, whose name in life had been Darius Phelps, worked at Livingston. A chance encounter with an old flame; Jeff Clark, gets Esther a job teaching acting to the kids at the centre and gives her a reason to hang around there and investigate further.

Before long Esther, Max, Jeff, Biko (the sword toting vigilante) and his older sister Puma are looking into an evil voodoo practitioner known as a bokor operating out of Livingston and about to call down some cataclysmic magic on New York. Esther’s never really over relationship with Lopez is rekindled and this time she’s the one who gives him up for their own good.

It sounds like a heap of crazy fun, and at times it is, but overall I was disappointed. The middle section of the book really drags. There’s far too much tell and nowhere near enough show. To totally understand what’s going on it is necessary for the author to educate her readers about voodoo, or as it is referred to in the book; vodou. She seemed to get a little bit carried away and there are about 3 chapters of infodumping, I had to check a couple of times just to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally picked up a copy of Voodoo for Dummies. I like Esther’s voice as narrator and for a while there in the middle it kind of got lost. I enjoyed the secondary character of aging wiseguy Lucky Battistuzzi in Doppelgangster and he doesn’t appear in Unsympathetic Magic, which I felt was a missed opportunity, as Esther is still singing for her supper at Bella Stella. Lucky is apparently holidaying in Sicily during this book, so that gave me hope that he may reappear in the future. Max didn’t seem anywhere near as funny this time around. Biko and Puma were needed, but they were rather generic, to use a film term they felt like they came right out of central casting. I also picked the villain far too early, and I’m not normally good at that, so Ms Resnick must have really telegraphed her punches.

On the good side of the ledger, I liked Jeff, the snarky, ex-boyfriend, he was a refreshing change from the too good to be true Conor Lopez, although I doubt he’ll return. Lopez got a bit more depth, he actually lost his temper with Esther (something that would have happened a lot earlier if he were a real person) and a mystery arose around him that will hopefully be explored further. I can’t find anything that specifically refers to Laura Resnick having ever been involved with the film or TV world, although her father (respected and prolific SFF author Mike Resnick) has written a number of works that were filmed, so that may account for her apparent in depth knowledge of the workings of a TV show. Esther’s descriptions of filming on Dirty Thirty certainly hinted at some familiarity with the industry. I also liked the character of the show’s narcissistic star; Mike Nolan. Esther’s an amusing and engaging heroine so I will follow her adventures with Vamparazzi, due out later this year. Towards the end of Unsympathetic Magic Esther was pressuring her agent Thackeray ‘Thack’ Shackleton (another peripheral character I’d like to know more about and see more of) to get her a role in a play called Vampyre, so that leads nicely into the upcoming book.

On a side note and continuing the TV show talk I could see this series making an entertaining show. It’d be better than most of the dross that audiences get served up.

Doppelgangster

These days when someone talks about influences on a newish Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance series the two names that most readily spring to mind are Charlaine Harris (author of the Sookie Stackhouse series on which the HBO hit True Blood is based) and Laurell K. Hamilton (author of the Anita Blake series), one name that doesn’t really come up is Janet Evanovich (author of the Stephanie Plum whodunits), however the heroine of Laura Resnick’s Esther Diamond series owes far more to Ms Evanovich’s feisty New Jersey bounty hunter than she does to Charlaine Harris’ mind reading Louisiana waitress or Laurell Hamilton’s reanimator cum vampire slayer.

Doppelgangster is actually the 2nd book in the series. The first one, the amusingly named Disappearing Nightly (Esther is a struggling actress) was originally published in 2005 and the author has since changed publishers and agents after the publisher of Disappearing Nightly (Luna) dropped the series due to disappointing sales of the book. Disappearing Nightly will be reissued by new publisher (DAW) in the near future. It’s not really necessary to have read the 1st book to pick up on this one. Esther gives a neat précis by way of introduction.

The cancellation of Esther’s current stage show (Sorceror!) forces her to find work as a singing waitress at a Little Italy establishment called Stella Bellas which is frequented by wiseguys from two feuding mob families (the Gambellos and the Corvinos). Esther sees a double of one of the hitmen and very soon after witnesses the man’s death. She becomes caught up in the aftermath of this, which also causes some interesting twists and turns in her relationship with homicide detective Connor Lopez. As more doubles keep popping up and the threat of a full scale mob war escalates Esther teams up with old school Gambello hit man Lucky Battistuzzi, her friend Max Zadok; a 350 year old magician, (Max was also a major character in Disappearing Nightly as was Lopez) and Max’s conjured up familiar; Nelli. Mayhem ensues and the phenomenon of doppelgangers are renamed doppelgangsters due to Lucky’s inability to correctly pronounce the accepted name. Can Esther, Lucky, Max and Nelli find out who’s behind it all in time to prevent an all out mob war, save themselves and Esther’s fast disintegrating romance with Detective Lopez? Can Esther do this and land a guest role on a popular TV cop show at the same time?

I found Doppelgangster a fun romp, yet another Urban Fantasy novel that proves you don’t need vampires or werewolves to succeed, although the doppelgangers were a little bit zombieish at times. Max’s attempts to understand Lucky’s ‘Goodfellas’ dialog were extremely amusing, and the presence of Max at a mob sit down trying to act like he was a wiseguy had me laughing out loud throughout the sequence. Nelli was also comedy relief and tended to remind me of Mouse from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Esther herself is an engaging narrator and tells a fast moving, action packed story. The one weak link I found, and I have seen this mentioned elsewhere, was the romance angle. It just didn’t seem believable. I put it down to the character of Lopez. He was simply too good to be true: good looking, sensitive, intelligent, understanding, he came across as if he just stepped out of a B grade romance novel (Laura Resnick used to write romance so maybe he did), he was incredibly bland, it didn’t help that he was rarely if ever referred to by anyone, including Esther, by his first name. He was always Lopez or Detective Lopez. I really had to hunt to find out what his first name was. As Resnick seems to reuse her characters from book to book in this series I'm hoping that Max and Lucky will reappear in the next book.

That criticism aside I had a good time with Doppelgangster, will be keeping an eye out for the release of Disappearing Nightly and also look forward to adding the 3rd Esther Diamond adventure: Unsympathetic Magic to my bookshelf in the near future.