Even after almost 20 years as a genre fiction book reviewer, I’m still surprised—shocked—by how many mediocre writers hit it big while other singularly brilliant novelists wallow in obscurity. For example, in urban fantasy the most underrated writer is unarguably Adrian Phoenix, author of one of the coolest, thematically deepest, and most wildly entertaining series ever written in the genre: The Maker’s Song (A Rush of Wings, In the Blood, Beneath the Skin, and the forthcoming Etched in Bone), which features vampire goth rock star Dante Baptiste and former FBI special agent Heather Wallace.
Baptiste isn’t only one of the sexiest characters in all of fantasy—he is described in Beneath the Skin as: “White skin, glossy black hair, Cupid’s bow lips, Dante Prejean was beyond beautiful. Just the sight of him in a photo had made Merri’s heart race, filled her mind with delicious and naughty thoughts. He’s also looked very young—twenty, twenty-two… bad and beautiful…”—he is one of the most complex characters as well.
Dante is not just any vampire, he’s the son of the fallen angel Lucien and he’s a Creawdwr, a maker, an extremely rare being with the godlike abilities to create or destroy. And on the run from a government agency known as the Shadow Bureau, he just may be losing his mind. As revealed in Beneath the Skin, Dante is nothing short of an unwitting messiah of the apocalypse: “…the future pumped within his heart and flowed through his veins. The future for all of them: mortal, vampire, Fallen, and everything in between. If he fell, the world would fall with him.”
It’s great stuff, but the majority of paranormal and urban fantasy fans I interact with haven’t yet discovered Phoenix’s work. Yeah, I know all about those writers at the very top of the paranormal/urban fantasy food chain: Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Patricia Briggs, Richelle Mead, Kat Richardson, Stacia Kane, etc. but ask anyone who has read Adrian Phoenix and I’ll bet that they place her right up there among the literary giants. She is that good—and yet, for whatever reason, she is not on the radar of mainstream readers like LKH, Kim, Patty, and the others.
All of that may very well change with the release of Black Dust Mambo, the first installment of a new series set in and around New Orleans and featuring Kallie Riviere, a sexy hoodoo apprentice who is described as “trouble-bait” and a “dark-haired swamp beauty.”
While attending a raucous carnival held by the Hecatean Alliance in the Big Easy, Kallie parties it up and awakens hung over in her hotel room to find the guy she hooked up with dead on her bed. After calling her friend Belladonna Brown for help, they discover that the man, a nomad conjurer named Gage, was murdered by dark juju—a soul-eating hex, in fact—and that his death was accidental. The target of the murder was Kallie! Gage’s death sets off a bizarre series of events in which the leader of the Hecatean Alliance, the pompous Lord Basil Augustine, is killed trying to save Kallie from yet another murder attempt and his soul temporarily takes up residence inside the body of Layne Valin, a hunky Vessel—a “living, breathing spirit cabinet”—who was best friends with Gage and wants nothing more than to track down his killer. Thus begins a pedal-to-the-metal paced quest not only to find the killer but also a journey of self-discovery for Kallie, whose past is as horrific as it is mysterious.
Compared to Adrian’s Maker’s Song novels, Black Dust Mambo is a little more palatable for mainstream readers—and by that I mean a slightly less labyrinthine storyline, an ensemble cast of smoking hot and undeniably sexy characters, and a focus on eroticism (the sex sequence featuring Augustine inside of Layne’s body was priceless!). But this isn’t some mindless literary escapist read by any stretch; Phoenix excels at creating a vivid and richly described backdrop—the atmospherics are simply superb—her characterization is a real strength as is her ability to weave a fast-paced and bombshell-laden storyline. And let’s face it: she is a beautiful storyteller—her prose flows like poetry.
Simply put, Adrian Phoenix has—yet again—written an extraordinarily entertaining novel that is addictively readable. Here’s just a taste:
“She stands beside the bayou’s cypress-shadowed waters, a gleaming knife clenched in one hand, a red candle cupped in the other. The mingled scents of roses and cinnamon curl into the air as the anointed wax melts, trickling hot over her fingers. In the darkness behind her, the rhythmic and steady throb of palm-slapped drums echoes through the night.
Ripples arrow along the bayou’s green surface as a gator glides toward the bank. But her gaze seeks the shadow flitting among the live oaks and cypress on the bayou’s other side, a man-shaped shadow that drops from upright to all fours. A shadow that lopes in easy, four-pawed grace across the sawgrass, moonlight pooled in its gleaming silver eyes.”
Take it from me, if you want the good stuff, the very best urban fantasy out there, you’ll seek out and read Adrian Phoenix.
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for almost the last two decades and has written more than 6,000 reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, and BarnesandNoble.com. In his free time, he reads.
