Book Review: Undead and Unemployed

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Undead and Unemployed     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
MaryJanice Davidson
Class/Genre:   Fantasy   Horror   Humorous   Vampire
Series: The Undead Series (Davidson) # 2
Berkley, Aug 2004, $5.99, 304 pp.

In St. Paul, the vampire minions consider Betsy Taylor as their Queen, but she wants to be left alone so that she can indulge in her shoe fetish. Rather than join Sinclair, the royal stud, who converted her three months ago, Betsy seeks employment. However, she quickly learns the first lesson from Remedial Vampirism 099 that using the glamour spell on a government bureaucrat never works as a civil servant must be officious to protect their butt. Next Betsy goes to Macy’s where she scores a job selling shoes. She appreciates bureaucratic ineptitude as she figures SSA will not realize that the employer of a dead person is making payments.

Bloodsucking visitors (not customers, but other vampires) keep arriving at the shoe department. Sinclair, who to Betsy’s chagrin heats her blood though she detests how he failed to warn her that he is more dangerous than cigarettes, demands she join him. Her subjects demand she find out who is killing the Twin Cities vampires and stop that culprit. She feels it is unfair because she is the newest of the brood and all she wants is a new pair of shoes besides a bite or two with Sinclair, who she needs to help her with the inquiries.

This sequel to the wacky UNDEAD AND UNWED, UNDEAD AND UNEMPLOYED is an amusing vampiric chick lit amateur sleuth tale worth sinking your teeth into as MaryJanice Davidson satirizes the three sub-genres. Betsy is a unique protagonist obsessed with expensive shoes while Sinclair is her perfect counterfoil. The rest of the cast enhances the comedic romp that takes a bite out of the acceptable norm of excesses that make up several fictional sub-classifications.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner