BOOK REVIEW: "A Rush of Wings" by Adrian Phoenix

This is a book by a friend of a friend; her first. It's a new variant on the vampire/gothic tale, and starts off with an FBI agent named Heather Wallace investigating a murder in New Orleans. It turns out that this death is only the latest in a string of murders by the CCK, or Cross-Country Killer. The identity of the killer is revealed early on but, since he's not the focus of the story, not too much harm is done other than an element of the mystery is dispensed with shortly into the story.

The main focus of the story is Dante, a mysterious young man with a blacked out memory of his troubled past. He spends most of his days at Club Hell, and heads up a band called Inferno. (At this point, my first thought of Dante's Inferno was the little whore house that Juno, the case worker for the newly deceased Maitlands, had placed in Adam's town model to distract the just released "Beetle Juice.") It turns out that all the murder and mayhem is aimed at him. It seems a sadistic vampire at FBI Headquarters thought that the best way to study psychos was to actually create them. The story basically involves the main characters, Heather (who has "fallen" for Dante) and Dante, tracing the bloody string of murders back to this vampire dame, and exacting revenge. In the process, it is revealed that she had no idea what she was dealing with in Dante.

Adrian takes some creative license at the start. She begins by redefining some key words: Elohim, a plural proper noun refering to God, who is a triune Being, or Trinity, now means all angelic beings (cherubim, seraphim, etc.) including God Himself. Having reduced God to a mere angel, she then issues the rather nietzschean statement that God is dead. His best friend and protector, Lucien, a bat-winged being, somehow failed to protect him from the others who killed him after he went mad. The name and description of Lucien makes him sound like Lucifer, the "anointed cherub" (Ez. 28:12-19), no friend of God, who sought to overthrow Him and take His place, but failed miserably (Is. 14:12-15). Lucien also sounds like a younger, souped up version of Lucius Malfoy of Harry Potter fame, with the house answering to Malfoy Manor.

Dante is the son of Lucien, one of the fallen, and a mortal woman-turned-vampire named Genevieve. Here another departure from established theology is made when she says that Dante is only 5 foot 9; a rather short specimen given the giants that initially resulted from such unions between angels (sons of God), and the daughters of men in Genesis 6. These beings, from which the stories of ancient gods having affairs with mortal women arose, were initially called Nephilim, and their descendents refered to with various -ims: Anakims & Emims (De. 2:10-11), Zamzummims (De. 2:20-21), and others.

Adrian does include a glossary at the end of the book that defines the terms she invented, the story itself placing them in context, as well as a translation of the Cajun French used throughout the book. (One misspelling occurs on page 176, 13th line up from the bottom, tired should have been tires.)

My critiquing aside, Adrian writes a good story that draws you in and keeps you anxiuos to find out what happens, esp. halfway through when the action really picks up. I had to stay up till after 1am to finish it at that point. Not bad for her first book. I would be interested to see what she comes up with next.