Jailbait Zombie (Felix Gomez, Book 4) [Paperback]

Mario Acevedo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

Vampires versus Zombies, round one . . .

Vampire detective Felix Gomez has seen a lot of weird things since becoming one of the undead—nymphomaniacs, aliens, and X-rated bloodsuckers, just to name a few—but now he comes face-to-face with the worst sort of undead.

To stop a ravenous army of zombies, Gomez must team up with a precocious teen with clairvoyant powers whose cooperation comes at a price: she won't help unless Felix makes her a vampire . . . if the zombies don't get her first.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Felix Gomez, vampire PI, tackles his gritty fourth adventure (after 2008's The Undead Kama Sutra), a blend of hard-boiled noir and contemporary horror. This time around, Felix is sent by his bosses at the Araneum, a worldwide network of vampires, to destroy a nest of zombies outside of Denver and put their creator out of business. On the zombies' trail, Felix meets Phaedra Nardoni, the 16-year-old responsible for his hallucinatory flashbacks to his days as a soldier in Iraq. Phaedra, who is dying of Huntington's chorea, threatens Felix with more hallucinations unless he turns her into a vampire. Felix's moral dilemma is cut short when the zombie reanimator captures him and explains his plans for world domination and zombies in space. Fans of splattery Hollywood-style horror will have fun with this tale of violence and mayhem. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Acevedo has proven once again that he is a very disturbed man—and I mean that in the absolute finest sense of the term.” (Tim Dorsey )

“The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is a witty, fast-paced, detective tale that also manages to update vampire lore in clever and imaginative ways.” (El Paso Times )

“Witty, fast-paced . . . manages to update vampire lore in clever and imaginative ways.” (El Paso Times )

“The hero of this whodunit is an Iraqi Freedom soldier turned vampire turned gumshoe. The plot tests credulity here and there, but the snappy dialogue (pun intended), the pace and the porn stars (supernatural and otherwise) who populate the book more than compensate.” (Playboy )

“Warning: The author of this book must be a vampire, because he had me hypnotized from page one. I defy anyone to read the first chapter of Acevedo’s The Nymphos of Rocky Flats and not fall under its spell. Vampire P.I. Felix Gomez is irresistibly entertaining.” (Rick Riordan, Edgar Award winning author of Mission Road )

Fans of splattery Hollywood-style horror will have fun with this tale of violence and mayhem. (Publishers Weekly )

“Acevedo’s vampire comedy provides plenty of chuckles, particularly in its exciting final wrap-up, which leaves an opening for further Felix adventures.” (Booklist (starred review) )

“The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is a sassy, fast, fun read, and the mystery wraps up nicely.” (Boulder Daily Camera )

“Deliciously unique. A smooth combination of Anne Rice and Michael Connelly, with a generous portion of Dave Barry. Loaded with thrills, sex, violence, and laughs, both mystery fanactics and horror lovers will find plenty to love with this page-turning debut. Acevedo is a writer to watch!” (JA Konrath, author of Bloody Mary )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 353 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; Original edition (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061567140
• ISBN-13: 978-0061567148
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,057,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vampires And Zombies Collide In A Supernatural Noir, April 20, 2009

By 

TMStyles (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jailbait Zombie (Felix Gomez, Book 4) (Paperback)

OK, right from the start let me say that Mario Acevedo and his signature character, Felix Gomez, are not for everyone. Even the names of his four novels are off-setting; "The Nymphos Of Rocky Flats", "X-Rated Bloodsuckers", "The Undead Kama Sutra", and this, his fourth installment, "Jailbait Zombie." Yet make no mistake about it, Acevedo is a craftsman who grows and matures with each new effort. Imagining his work as a movie would conjure images of Quentin Tarantino doing George Romero.

Acevedo has created a plausible world of modern vampires that rivals that of Charlie Huston (see "Half The Blood In Brooklyn"). Both series portray the vampire world as coexisting in our modern world but in highly secretive fashion, with Gomez governed by and assisting, at times, the Araneum, a governing council for vampire behavior. While the texture and mood of their modern day vampire worlds are clearly different in the renderings of Huston and Acevedo, the vampire/human relationships and interactions and the philosophy, "laws", and governing structure underpinning their worlds are fun to unravel. For example, Felix is an enforcer for the Araneum whose main objective is to prevent any revelation that vampires or zombies or anything other than normal human beings exist on the planet. Felix is both enforcer and clean-up man for the governing council.

In "Jailbait Zombie", Felix is sent to the Denver area to ascertain who is reanimating dead beings into zombies and destroy all evidence of them, and, concomitantly, to find who or what is the source of flashes of psychic energy emanating from the area that may be disturbing the astral plane. No sooner does he arrive in the area, than he is beset with mafia minions, unexplained zombie attacks, and a dying 16-year old, Phaedra Nardoni, who wants him to turn her into a vampire to escape the ravages of Huntington's Chorea. Turning an innocent violates both Felix's and the Araneum's code but this young lady has the psychic ability to read his thoughts and to punish him with powerful and humbling blasts of psychic energy.

Felix is investigating the undead and seeking the reanimator when he is captured, tortured, and toyed with by the proverbial "mad scientist" behind it all. Before the novel winds down, Felix and his fellow enforcer and sometime lover, Jolie, do some serious [...] while Felix is forced into making life changing decisions for Phaedra as well as for himself. Actually, the psychological aspects and demands on Felix's character are an intriguing underlying current in Acevedo's novels.

I enjoy reading the details of the rules and procedures for vampires living among the humans in Felix's life. For example, his joy at eating hot Mexican food laced with whole blood, or the various outcomes of his "fanging" a human along with how he controls the enzymes that have various functions in the process. Vampires can exist in sunlight as long as they wear sunblock and make-up, vampires enjoy making love and having sex, and vampires are not affected by religious symbols (crosses, holy water, etc). Acevedo creates interesting fully fleshed characters and his plots are often unique to this genre. I heartily recommend this series to fans of vampire literature or of supernatural noir.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome, Plain and simple, February 11, 2010

By 

Scott Sowles "Night Reader" (St. louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jailbait Zombie (Felix Gomez) (Kindle Edition)

Mario Acevedo is one of my favorite authors, and he continues to deliver.
So far the series has been absolutely amazing. I finished Jailbait zombie in a single night, and it is not a short book. I could not put down..
Highly recommend all of this series..

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced fun with a great ending, June 28, 2009

By 

Eric Jaenike - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jailbait Zombie (Felix Gomez) (Kindle Edition)

This is another fun, fast paced installment from Acevedo. A great blend of tempo, suspense, and humor.