Brimstone Kiss (Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator) [Mass Market Paperback]

Carole Nelson Douglas (Author)

Book Description

Series: Delilah Street; Paranormal Investigator | Publication Date: October 28, 2008

Delilah and her partner - tall, dark, handsome, and Hispanic ex-FBI guy Ric Montoya - are busy solving a "Romeo and Juliet" double-murder and she's got plenty more to deal with: vampires, werewolves, and tigers, oh my!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Filled with kisses and kick-ass action, the second installment of this campy series (after 2007's Dances with Werewolves) finds paranormal investigator Delilah Street taking on her first case in an alternate 2010 Las Vegas. When Delilah and her boyfriend, ex-FBI agent Ric Montoya, find the bodies of two teens killed in Sunset Park in 1946, the girl's ghost appears and claims the killer was her father, werewolf mobster Cesar Cicereau. Vampire mogul Howard Hughes hires Delilah to learn the identity of the girl's vampire companion, and she also comes under pressure from albino vampire rocker Snow; television producer Hector Nightwine; and the Invisible Man, a zombie merged with Claude Rains's black-and-white film character. Douglas's dishy style compliments the twisty plot, and she helpfully includes references for the numerous nods to the silver screen, Egyptology and cocktails. (Dec.)
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About the Author

Carole Nelson Douglas, author of more than fifty fantasy and science fiction, mystery, mainstream, and romance novels, was an award-winning reporter and editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. After writing some bestselling high fantasy novels and SF thrillers, she imported fantasy notions into her Midnight Louie mystery series, which features a hard-boiled Las Vegas PI who’s a feline “Sam Spade with hairballs.” Her Irene Adler historical series made Carole the first author to use a woman from the Sherlock Holmes stories as a protagonist in the 1991 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Good Night, Mr. Holmes. She’s won or been short-listed for more than fifty writing awards in nonfiction, sf/fantasy, mystery, and romance genres, including several from the Romance Writers of America and Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine, and the Cat Writers’ Association. In 2008, RT BOOKreviews magazine named Carole a “pioneer of the publishing industry. Carole and husband Sam Douglas, a former art museum exhibitions director and kaleidoscope designer, are kept as pets by five stray cats and a dog in Fort Worth, Texas. She collects vintage clothing, and does a mean Marilyn Monroe impersonation, and, yes, she does dance, but not with werewolves. As far as she knows.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: Juno (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809573040
• ISBN-13: 978-0809573042
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #686,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With her home office a Twilight Zone landscape of mannequins in vintage dress, no wonder award-winning ex-journalist and novelist Carole Nelson Douglas's 55 novels range from historical and contemporary mystery and romance to science fiction thrillers to high and urban fantasy. They include two Las Vegas-set series: the Midnight Louie, feline PI, mysteries partially narrated by a "Sam Spade with hairballs" and the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, noir urban fantasies of werewolf mobsters and Silver Screen zombies in a paranormal Vegas.

Douglas was the first author of a Sherlockian series with a female protagonist, diva-detective Irene Alder, the only woman to outwit Holmes, debuting with the New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Good Night, Mr. Holmes. Rachel McAdams plays Irene in the Dec. 25 film with Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock. Douglas says if she has a literary muse, it's definitely feline: mysterious, wise, playful, and packing sharp shivs in velvet gloves.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please get a different editor for your next book!, January 27, 2009

By 

Tamara Deschepper (Fairfield, IA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brimstone Kiss (Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator) (Mass Market Paperback)

I read a lot of novels, and this was the most painful novel I've read in years. Painful because the characters and setting were so interesting and I really wanted to know more - but the editing was so bad!

Possible spoilers ahead - read on with caution...

This book read like a first draft - maybe they just printed the wrong version? There were numerous times where you could see how the writer was figuring out how to develop her story. For example, Del and Ric go to the morgue. They have a little conversation about now that the werewolves know that they dug up the boss's daughter, they need to ID the other corpse pronto. Once the police announce both ID's, they'll be a lot safer. Then Ric makes a cute suggestive comment and they enter the morgue.

Next chapter - Del and Ric are in the park having lunch. He asks her where she's been. She announces the ID of the dead woman, Ric says "That's big news!" then proceeds with the same comments he made at the morgue. Including the exact same cute comment word for word! While this was perhaps interesting from the creative process point of view (do I bring readers up to date at the morgue or the park?) it makes reading the book difficult. Especially since this was not the only occurrence of a continuity problem. With a decent editor, this could have been a much better book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Left Hanging! AGAIN!, October 25, 2008

By 

Cindymac52 "Cin:D" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brimstone Kiss (Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator) (Mass Market Paperback)

I absolutely love the character of Delilah Street. For such a rough beginning in life she is a delightfully well rounded young lady. The story line is wonderful, and I think it's fine that an author gives you hints as to the line the next book in a series might take. But WHY do authors feel they must leave you hanging? If I wanted a soap opera cliffhanger... I would just watch soap operas. If the book is GOOD we will buy the next in the series. Please, get a clue, end the book, and pick it up again where we left our hero!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad girl Bad bad bad, December 16, 2008

By 

Darilee Bednar "bookstorelady" (Marysville WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brimstone Kiss (Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator) (Mass Market Paperback)

I like Nelson's books and writing. I really enjoyed the first book Dancing With Werewolves. So I paid full price for a new book (I own a used bookstore so that's a big deal). Excited and sick with the flu I started reading.. and there was NOTHING new until page 288 or so of this 400 page book.

Nelson starts with a brief intro which is cool because book one was full of introductions to this person and that situation. And then Nelson retells book one for nearly 288 pages.

Example: I was in the middle of the Brimstone Kiss when Delilah again reflects how lucky she was that she lived in an enchanted cottage where two forlorn lovers found each other... and I think wait is that the third or fourth time she has said that... and as a good researcher I should go back and count the number to times she redundantly says/whines/daydreams/gloats about her cottage (shoot I should count how many times I use ... ) but I'm can't because I'm always goin' to associate this book with the flu.

Delilah revisits Howard Hughes, Snow, her horrible childhood, the weatherwitch, and that slimy police detective who gets bit in the you know what again. Sex acts with Ric... Lost count of those also(made the book read faster as I skip those) ... and a freaking cliff hanger. Bad girl Bad bad bad ....