[Book review] Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

This book will be available on January 25, 2011.


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My first experience with Cherie Priest’s writing was on her blog.  I enjoyed her wit and humor as she wrote about her daily life, her writing, and her cat Spain.  Nowadays her energies are turned to her novels, and her stories have earned her award nominations and critical acclaim.  She turns her pen to supernatural fantasy in Bloodshot, which features a vampire heroine with some rather prominent issues.

Raylene Pendle, also known as “Cheshire Red,” is both vampire and thief, and her usual targets involve art and incriminating videos.  When she’s hired by another vampire who needs her help to find his medical records, she has no idea what she’s about to get into.

Ian Stott was a captive of a secret government experiment that robbed him of his sight, even though vampires are supposed to be able to heal almost any injury.  He hopes that the experiment notes might allow his doctor to reverse some of the damage.  Project Bloodshot, as it was called, is apparently not closed like they thought, but alive and active.  What follows is a chase across the country that will involve urban explorers, Men in Black, and drag queens.  And someone wants not only Ian, but Raylene as well.

While I always enjoy Priest’s books, I have a greater fondness for the ones that utilize her sense of humor.  She has a way of describing things or expressing things that puts me in mind of authors like Terry Pratchett.  This, I feel, is Priest at her strongest, combining action with a few laughs and a razor-sharp wit.  I do like her steampunk tales, don’t get me wrong—I just happen to like her witty prose better.  Thus, I heartily enjoyed this one.

I was impressed that the author painted Raylene as a woman with some visible flaws; specifically, a penchant for obsessive behaviors and battles with panic and indecision.  This keeps her from being one of those vampire characters that can do anything and get the better of anyone.  Raylene often hesitates at critical moments, or overthinks plans, or simply gets so focused on one aspect of a situation that she misses others.  It made her a lot more believable, and a lot more intriguing.  We’ve all read about the super-competent thief, but we don’t often hear about the ones that metaphorically trip themselves up.

There was one way that her obsessiveness was displayed that I found a little repetitive, and that’s in Raylene’s waffling over pronouns.  At several points in the novel, she talked about characters that were chasing her, and she didn’t know if they were male or female.  Over and over, I read things like “him (or her?)” and “his (or hers?)” until it became intrusive.   However, I’m pretty sure that this is indeed a way to show Raylene’s personality, and so I let it slide.  Other readers may not find that this jumps out at them quite as much.

One of Priest’s other strengths is her unique plotting.  This novel goes from Seattle to Minneapolis to Atlanta to Washington D.C. without missing a beat, and the complicated plot twists all fit together and make sense.  It may not seem like it will, but believe me, it does.  Along the way, she brings in the aforementioned drag queens, and Men in Black, as well as homeless teens, vampires Houses, crooked museum curators, and a host more.

Cherie Priest is one of the freshest and most original voices on the shelves today.  Bloodshot, which begins a new series, is the perfect introduction to this smart and sassy writer.  I’ll be eagerly waiting for the next Raylene story.

Also by this author: Fathom, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Not Flesh Nor Feathers, Wings to the Kingdom

This book was provided by the publisher.