Customer Reviews

Second Sunrise: A Lee Nez Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Second Sunrise is a new serial by the Thurlo team. They have over 30 books to their credit. I am not sure what happened here.

Second Sunrise begins on a dark night in the secluded hills of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, when state patrolman Lee Nez's life is forever altered. Lee and his rookie partner Benny interrupt a military ambush massacre. Benny is murdered and Lee is mortally injured. Lee wakes a new man, a nightwalker, which apparently is the Navajo word for vampire.

The story jumps to sixty years later. Lee continues to search for the nightwalker who transformed him and to fend off the skinwalkers who want the immortal properties of his blood. Skinwalker is a term for Navajo witches able to shapeshift into wolves.

Just when you thought that every vampire story had been told, the Thurlos come out with a fresh twist. Second Sunrise is no Dracula and the Thurlos are no Bram Stoker. I love vampire stories. I didn't like this book, at least not as a whole.

There was much about the story that I enjoyed. The supporting character FBI Agent Diane Lopez is strong, confident and can hold her own despite the gravity of the situations in which she finds herself. The premise of Navajo magic and the ancient history behind it and its people is intriguing and well presented, describing cultural cues like finger pointing and waiting outside to be invited in.

Unfortunately, I found the first chapters slow and tedious. From the jacket cover I already knew someone was going to die and that Lee would become a nightwalker. This section took too long to get to the point. Throughout the novel there was a lot of telling going on. Too much time was spent talking about personality traits instead of showing them through actions. This made it difficult to connect with the lead character positively or negatively, therefore there was no emotional involvement with him, his life or his actions.

Second Sunrise was overly repetitive. Benny's death and the young bride and infant son he leaves behind are mentioned four times in the first 83 pages. Totally unnecessary and irritating. The story isn't so involved that the reader wouldn't remember a driving force such as this. There are many other instances of this kind of repetition.

The language reflected this redundancy, with overused phrases, unnecessarily mundane details, and facts pointed out to the reader evident within the scene. All these details make it seem as though readers have short attention spans.

I believe this could have been an exciting addition to the vampire genre. I just think it was released too soon. So much more could have been done with it. It needs to be tidied up. Perhaps it would have helped to have the point of view in first person. If you want to read a different twist on the vampire story then pick this up but if you want a gripping tale with believable characters you can sympathize with and be moved by, this isn't it.

Review Originally Posted at http://www.linearreflections.com

Having enjoyed several of the Ella Clah mysteries by the Thurlos, I had high expectations for Second Sunrise. Those were dashed almost immediately. #1 places the book in the horror genre and it is indeed a horror of clunky narrative, stilted dialogue, and unconvincing plot.

In 1945, Lee Nez, a New Mexico State Policeman of Navajo extraction and his partner come upon a gang of German spies led by a Nazi vampire attacking a military convoy carrying plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Everyone but Nez and the vampire are killed in the ensuing firefight. Nez manages to hide the plutonium before the German vampire turns him into a vampire. Nez goes to a Navajo healer living conveniently nearby and is partially cured of his vampirism. "partially" means he is less strong than a full-blown vampire, but can survive in daylight with a good coat of sunblock. The healer warns him to watch out for skinwalkers -- Navajo shapeshifters -- because they can smell vampires and covet their immortality. So much for prologue.

55 years later, Nez has rejoined the New Mexico State Police in the four corners area as Leonard Hawk. He apparently spent the intervening years exterminating skinwalkers and the odd vampire. He learns that the German vampire has returned, posing as a German airforce pilot in order to recover the plutonium Nez hid for Iraqi terrorists. Lee Hawk's inquiry about the German pilot brings him to the attention of a beautiful, spunky FBI agent. She becomes his ally after they are attacked at his apartment by a pack of skinwalkers in wolf form.

The story ought to be riviting, but it clanks along like the caterpiller tractor that figures in the anticlimactic denouement.

This book tumbled out of my hands and hit the floor about the point that the female FBI Agent and the female Vampire began to insult one another about their respective weights. That has to be a new low in vampire fiction. The other times the book fell out of my hands was because I could no longer keep my eyes open as Nez and Lopez have long pointless conversations with the occasional coy romantic comment. I think that the FBI agent who was killed early in the book got off easily compared to those of us who stayed to the end.

The authors cannot resist hopping on every new bandwagon that goes by, unfortunately they forget to get off the old bandwagons. Therefore, in this book we have a female FBI agent out to avenge her dead partner, skinwalkers (sort of Navaho Werewolves), German vampires, and a Navaho vampire state cop also out to avenge his dead partner (who was killed in 1945). All of the characters are one dimensional at best.

The skinwalkers are inherently evil and hunt vampires for no discernable purpose except the authors needed some action to propel the story to its next stage. The German vampires are equally purposeless except they want to get their hands on a case that might (no one really knows for sure) contain uranium or plutonium or something radioactive-- so much of this book is just two characters who have no facts engaging in fruitless speculation.

Let's not forget the writing. There is a lot of telling and not showing with strange moments of exposition that make me think that the authors had suddenly thought of something they should have mentioned earlier, so they jam it into the conversation whether it feels natural-- if any of the conversation in this book seems natural-- or not.

I think I should say something positive about the book, though. The dust jacket on the hard cover is rather clever and unusual. Shame it couldn't be on a better book.

I have enjoyed the Ella Clah series by the Thurlos and thought I'd give the Lee Nez series a try. It is a waste of money. I could almost make it through the wooden characters and clunky narrative, but couldn't someone run a spell and grammer checker before they turned it in for publication? I'm not going to waste any more money on this series. It seemed like it was written by the Thurlos during a sleepwalking episode. Certainly not their best work.

This is the first book in a series of three--so far. Lots of Navajo culture and
beliefs are incorporated into an exciting mystery based in New Mexico. Authors
write in a pleasing manner. You forget about your problems when you become
involved in this great read.

During World War II in the Four-Corner region of New Mexico, state policeman Lee Nez got involved in a shoot-out with German spies intent on stealing plutonium. Lee was able to get the plutonium and bury it, but a German going by the name of Hans Gruber is intent of retrieving the stolen goods. When Lee refuses to hand it over, he kills Lee and then revives the cop as a vampire. Lee still refuses to give up what he buried and eventually Hans disappear.

Lee visits a shaman who uses magic to turn him into a half vampire so that with sun block he can walk outside in daylight. During the next fifty years, Lee tries to find Hans while fighting skinwalkers, Navaho witches who can assume the shape of an animal. They want his blood to gain immortality. Finally, Lee locates the former Nazi, using the name Major Wolfgang Muller who is assigned with other NATO officers at Ft. Wingate. Teaming up with a beautiful FBI agent, Lee intends to go after the major and make sure he kills him in a way that he won't rise again.

Aimee and David Thurlo are well known for their mystery novels but fans of the authors should try SECOND SUNRISE because they write horror tales that are as good as their police procedurals. Likewise horror aficionados should read the mysteries as well. The hero gains instant sympathy for his plight and the audience will adore him because he tries so hard to be a good person. Based on actual Navaho legends, horror fans will be very pleased with this refreshingly unique work and hope there are future novels starring Lee.

Harriet Klausner

I really enjoyed Second Sunrise. The premise of the book -- that of a half-vampire Navajo searching for the Nazi vampires that made him that way -- is so fun that when I heard about it I simply had to get this book and read it.

Thurlo and Thurlo don't disappoint. Instead of the slow and dreamy pacing of an Ann Rice vampire tome we get the clipped, staccato pace of a first rate detective story. When an attack happens it is over if you blink twice, and then the plot races on. There are some very scary and suspenseful scenes and some tender ones, too, building to a relentless finale with a twist I won't reveal here. It is a delicious twist and something you might see coming -- I didn't.

I hope to see further adventures from Lee Nez, and I'll definitely look up other titles from the Thurlos.

The story starts in 1944, with a police officer named Lee Nez and his partner in the state of New Mexico. Lee and his partner encounter a few vampires while they are on patrol. These vampires are on a mission to steal nuclear information from the American government. As these two officer try to stop the vampires, Lee is turned into a vampire and his partner is killed in action. Lee, being a Navajo Indian, goes to a medicine man to seek help, Lee is still a vampire but without all of the bad side effects of being one. As the story progresses, Lee hunts down the vampires and takes revenge for his partner and himself. This story has a romantic side as well; it includes a woman FBI agent with which he teams up and falls in love. Navajo vampires can change into animals called skinwalkers. Since Lee is now a vampire he is immortal.

Even though this may sound all exciting, the plot isn't as good as I thought it would be. The authors had too many ideas were tried to be included, so it made it a little complicated to read. This book would have been better if one time period would have been chosen.

Apart from this, the overall book was better than I thought it would be. Many details were explained in the book about the Navajo people. The development of the characters was great. It didn't drag on and it was perfect in that aspect.

I recommend this book to anyone that is looking to know more about the Navajo people. In this way it is very informative.

I found the Kindle version extremely difficult to read because the OCR used to translate the book had so many errors! My home OCR program does a much better job than this which should be at a professional level.

Shame on YOU!Second Sunrise: A Lee Nez Novel

This book definitely opened up a new world to me that I had never heard of before, especially since I have never lived around Arizona or New Mexico where the Navajo culture is, and also being someone who never found vampires interesting. With that in mind though I did enjoy the book and I learned a lot about the culture in that area.

The story starts with a New Mexico state police officer named Lee Nez, in 1944. Lee is on patrol one night when he encounters some vampires that were sent as spy's to steal nuclear information from the American government. Lee tries to stop them but his partner is killed and Lee is turned into a vampire. However, he being a Navajo Indian goes to a medicine man that is able to make it so that he is still a vampire but doesn't have all the bad side effects of being one. The rest of the story is how Lee tries to hunt down the vampires and get revenge for what they did to him and his partner. It includes a woman FBI agent that he teams up and falls in love with, and Navajo vampire killers who can change into animals called skinwalkers. Since Lee is a vampire he is immortal so it takes place in modern day time.

As exciting as all that sounds the plot wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I feel that the authors try to include too many different ideas and thoughts into the book and it just makes it to complicated. It would have been better if they had just chosen one time period, I would have been able to understand more that way.

It wasn't all bad though. There was a lot of facts that were included in the book about the Navajo people that helped me understand there way of life. Also the book was the perfect length. They were able to give just enough details to develop the characters but it didn't drag on. I am a slow reader but I was able to read the book in a week because they had me hooked.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something to read that is exciting but informative. However, I don't think this is the kind of book that you can read over and over again.