Smoke and Shadows

April 5, 2004
Lights, camera and action take a backseat to slippery shadows, snappy dialogue and an overwrought hybrid fantasy/SF plot in Canadian author Huff's alternately clever and annoying blend of farce, mystery and magic, the first in a trilogy. In this spinoff from the author's five-volume series (Blood Price, etc.) featuring vampire Henry Fitzroy, Fitzroy's streetwise ex-lover, Tony Foster, has moved with Fitzroy to Vancouver to study film. Now the set production assistant on CB Production's Darkest Night (think Angel), Foster pines for one of the hunky (alas, heterosexual) co-stars and dreams of being a director. When an actress is murdered under very "shadowy" circumstances, it turns out to have been done by a minion of a Shadowlord who slipped through a "gate" near the show's soundstage originally opened by Arra Pelindrake, a special effects wizard who also happens to be, well, a different sort of wizard on another world. Foster, Pelindrake and Fitzroy join forces to kill other minions sent to take over Earth and destroy Pelindrake, the Shadowlord's archenemy. The proceedings are enlivened with campy comments ("a world where Joss Whedon got canceled was exactly the kind of world where the Shadowlord could win"), but it's not enough to save an overextended plot light on substance and heavy with fang-in-cheek fun.

March 15, 2004
When an actress in a popular vampire TV series is found dead in her dressing room, production assistant Tony Foster suspects the presence of a supernatural foe and turns to his former mentor for advice-450-year-old Henry Fitzroy, vampire and bastard son of Henry VIII. In Huff's long-awaited addition to her popular Henry Fitzroy series, Henry once again takes part in the struggle between good and evil, fighting not only to save the humans upon which he depends for his existence but also the world from conquest by a being from another realm. The author's delightfully light touch lends a sense of timeliness to this effortlessly told fantasy mystery, the first title in a new trilogy. For most libraries.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2004
Four-hundred-fifty-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy is trying to maintain a friendship with Tony Foster, a young man he rescued from the streets and used to drink blood from. Tony is now a production assistant for the syndicated show " Darkest Night," where he has just discovered the dead body of the guest star. Tony fears it has something to do with the strange shadows he has seen around the studio, and his suspicions are confirmed when one shadow takes over the body of one of the show's stars. Tony turns to special-effects wizard Arra Pelindrake, who turns out to be a real wizard. She knows what the shadows are but is reluctant to help him, so Tony calls on Henry. Together, they persuade Arra to cooperate but can't get her to face down the shadows, with whom Tony and Henry are already being drawn into battle, for the shadows are intent on gaining a foothold in this world. An exciting, creepy adventure from a popular author.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)