Blood Bar by Norm Applegate

In his third novel, Norm Applegate continues to tell the story of his interesting heroine--Kim Bennett, a San Fransisco madame. This time, Rose has called Kim from New York City. Rose is a role-playing vampire, a woman who truly believes that she is a vampire and drinks blood. Her boyfriend, Drach, also a role-playing vampire, has been poisoned and killed.

Kim flies to New York to help her friend and is quickly drawn into the vampire underworld. She meets Nicolai and his blood slave, Erin. She learns that vampires do exist, and is drawn into the search for the vampires' greatest secret, the Black Testament. Along the way, she learns that she is related to Jack the Ripper, and her friend Rose is related to the Ripper's first victim, Mary Anne Nicholls.

There's also a healthy dose of eroticism in the book--it's definitely written for adults!

There are two truly distracting elements to this book. One, Applegate's copy editor fell down on the job. There are numerous glaring grammatical mistakes, usually run-on sentences, but also typos and misspellings. The other issue is that while Applegate attempts to make the story mysterious, present a puzzle for the reader to solve, all he does is succeed in confusing the reader.

The story was interesting, but the writing really was distracting. I ended up feeling more confused in the end than satisfied with the story. It didn't really have the right flavor for me to enjoy it fully. However, if you enjoy vampire stories, a walk on the dark side, mystery, and a healthy dose of erotica, this book is for you.