Fox, Andrew. Bride of the fat white vampire. New York: Ballantine, 2004. 429pp

This is a sequel to Andrew Fox's first novel, Fat White Vampire Blues and, if anything, is even better than the first.

FWVB is, of course, a vampire novel. But unlike the current crop of vampire stuff, the main character Jules Duchon isn't suave or handsome or mysterious. He's a 450 pound cab driver with a penchant for fanging people who love greasy fast food. Set in New Orleans, FWVB is a great first novel but shows some of the weaknesses inherent in first outings. A little rambling and all over the place, it seemed to shift from comedy to thriller to tragedy and all the way back without the focus those kinds of plot gymnastics require.

BotFWV more or less picks up where the first left off. At the end of the first novel, Jules transformed himself into a horde of white rats in the process of defeating an evil gang of vampires and at the start of the second is unable to get back into human vampire form. Well, his buddies get him back to human form (missing a very important part!) and he sets out of the task of ressurecting the love of his life who was murdered by the bad guys in the first. The novel unwinds in a pretty relaxed way but does keep on track without wandering like the first. The secondayr characters are well drawn, especially Jules's circle of friends. Set in New Orleans, the novel also gives us a glimpse of the lost glories of the Big Easy. Highly recommended.