The Falstaff Vampire Files [Paperback]

Lynne Murray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2011

In this fresh revisioning of the vampire genre, Sir John Falstaff is undead and misbehaving in San Francisco. Middle-aged psychologist Kris Marlowe doesn't believe in vampires, but when she's attacked by a horde of murderous monsters, she must seek help from the most famous rogue in history, who once drank ale and now drinks only blood. "Alternatively funny and creepy, with a little sexy romance thrown in for good measure," says John Miller, author of Jackson Street & Other Soldier Stories, Coyote Moon & Tropical Heat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In modern-day San Francisco, Sir John Falstaff, the charming rogue made famous by Shakespeare in his play Henry V, is a centuries-old vampire who has lost none of his captivating manner. Murray (Bride of the Living Dead) combines rich storytelling with humor to spin a fun, exciting tale." -Library Journal 

"CAN YOU REALLY TAKE SHAKESPEARE AND STOKER TO CREATE SOMETHING ORIGINAL? THIS BOOK DOES! Novices to the vampire and vampiric parody fields will find the work a laugh-a-minute. HYSTERICAL and a fast read, THE FALSTAFF VAMPIRE FILES is worth devouring." - Fresh Fiction

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: Pearlsong Press (September 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597190381
• ISBN-13: 978-1597190381
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I came to San Francisco to go to college, got captivated by the city, and have not left for long since then. It is the perfect setting for any kind of fiction. It's good ground to conjure up fog and dark nights for paranormal activities in The Falstaff Vampire Files, sunshine on the Bay for the romantic comedy in Bride of the Living Dead, and even as jumping off ground to investigate bit of murder as in the Josephine Fuller mysteries.

I share an apartment with a small group of extremely mellow cats, who are all either rescued or formerly feral.

Aside from novels, I've written humorous short pieces that have appeared in magazines and newspapers. Many of these articles, including the most fun one of all--an interview of Darlene Cates, star of What's Eating Gilbert Grape--available on my website at www.lmurray.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another hit from the pen of Lynne Murray!, October 15, 2011

By 

Melody Moskowitz (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Falstaff Vampire Files (Paperback)

I have never been interested in vampires, Frankenstein, or fairy tales, or the mythologies surrounding them. However, my son went through his middle and high school years wearing fangs and a ruffled formal shirt and tails to school periodically and I went to school to defend his right to do that. And he was in the St. Louis Rocky Horror Cast and so I spent a lot of time with the other kids in the cast and watching the movie and talking about why I thought it was a wonderful thing for kids to be involved with because of all the positive values it encouraged -- especially an embrace of diversity. I've heard a lot about how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is an important feminist text. So my disinterest in the three fantasy strands so popular in our contemporary culture is not chosen nor is it the result of lack of exposure; it's just my innate temperament. However, my older granddaughter is interested in the vampire literature that is so popular with her peers so I decided to read a vampire novel to see if I could understand the appeal.

I chose Lynne Murray's book as my first vampire novel because I already knew I liked her writing and her plotting from having read and enjoyed her Josephine Fuller mysteriesLarger Than Death (Josephine Fuller Mystery) and her terrific Bride of the Living Dead Bride of the Living Dead. I can't talk about The Falstaff Vampire Files in the context of vampire literature -- but I enjoyed this novel because it tells a good story filled with brilliantly witty and erudite references to Shakespeare and English history -- characters and quotations. Murray incorporates and plays with Shakespeare as if his work is a kind of cultural melody that inhabits her novel the way rock and roll inhabits the work of other writers. I loved sharing Murray's obvious fun upending the back-stories of "world famous" fictional characters. Finding out the truth about who Falstaff "really" was, was fascinating. I don't know if she made it up or if it is a current scholarly controversy -- framed something like this: We all know that Shakespear never invented a thing, not a plot or a character. It was all borrowed from some body or some place else. We all know that Shakespear wasn't even Shakespear; somebody else wrote all those plays based on borrowings or stealings of other people work and lives. So now we will unmask who is really behind the Falstaff character. I haven't kept up with current Shakespeare scholarship and controversy since 1969. Other writers have won my heart and I have read them and written about them and collected their work into anthologies The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe: And Other Stories of Women and Fatness (The Women's Stories Project)and taken on their tropes as the best expressions of what I know about women's lives.

My interest in women's literature leads me to what most captured me about this book: it's a women's story. It's not just a woman's story but it's the story of a group of women. Women of different ages, different "stations" in life, different shapes and sizes, relationships with different power dynamics (therapist/client, landlady/renter, etc.) all involved with each other in complex emotional relationships without reference to men as an element of how they relate to each other. There are elements of women's friendships, mother/daughter types of relationships Between Mothers and Daughters : Stories Across a Generation (The Women's Stories Project), women being forced into the position of being "the other woman" in another woman's life who meet and have to negotiate that element in their relationship The Other Woman: Stories of Two Women and a Man. So much relationship variety and complexity! Only one woman remains outside of the female bonding and she is irretrievably lost; she drowns in faceless ghostly gray blobbiness! The Falstaff Vampire Files The Falstaff Vampire Filesis truly and deeply rich in the most important elements of classical women's literature. And I guess that includes the tradition of women's love for animals, too; in this case, it is cats, as it so often is, who enrich women's lives.

The writing is intelligent, witty, nicely paced. It is a substantial book filled with erudition, wit, and depth masquerading as light-weigh bit of genre stuff. The audience for FALSTAFF should be enormous because it can feed so many literary appetites. And of course, it is a book about appetites -- for something other than the usual steak and baked potato.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Falstaff Rocks!, October 11, 2011

By 

Jaqueline Girdner (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Falstaff Vampire Files (Kindle Edition)

Lynne Murray's engaging writing has pulled me past my prejudice against vampires. Like all her witty books, the great characters in The Falstaff Vampire Files grabbed me from the first page and kept me reading to the end. There were some spine-tingling moments, some laugh-out-loud moments, and a dash of romance. This book shows a different kind of vampire and an invisible otherworldly after-dark society that fits under the surface of San Francisco like a glove. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and fresh, November 5, 2011

By 

April Henry "mr_e_ryter" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Falstaff Vampire Files (Paperback)

Therapist Kris Marlowe's bad luck is about to get worse. First her sexy, younger lover Hal turns out to have asked one of her clients to get married (I actually know someone who experienced something similar - two women who compared notes about their boyfriends until it became obvious they were talking about the same guy!) Then sKris is attacked by vampires, which, to add insult to injury, she doesn't even believe in. It's a book about all kind of appetites, not just for blood, but also for good sex and good food. Funny, sexy, and a little bit spooky!