REVIEW: All the World’s an Undead Stage by Angel Martinez
Book six in the Offbeat Crimes series
‘Old actors never die’ shouldn’t be literally true.
Carrington Loveless III, skim-blood vampire and senior officer of Philly’s paranormal police department, has long suspected that someone’s targeting his squad. The increasingly bizarre and dangerous entities invading their city can’t be a coincidence. So when a walking corpse spouting Oscar Wilde attacks one of his officers, Carrington’s determined to uncover the evil mind behind it all.
As a rare books librarian, Erasmus Graham thought he understood some of the stranger things in life. Sharing a life with Carrington has shown him he didn’t know the half of it. They’ve survived attack books and deadly dust bunnies together and got through mostly unscathed. Now his world and his vampire’s appear ready to collide again. Books are missing from the Rare Book collection—old tomes of magic containing dangerous summonings and necromancy. He’s certain whoever has been stalking the Seventy-Seventh is composing their end game. It’s going to take a consolidated effort from paranormal police, librarians and some not-quite-authorized civilians to head off the impending catastrophe.
Dear Ms. Martinez,
Finally the sixth and last installment of the Offbeat Crime Series. After a slowly building reign of terror in Philly as weirder and weirder monsters attack our paranormal cops, the evil mastermind is exposed as he attempts to unleash more evil. End of the world evil – with tentacles.
The 77th Precinct in Philadelphia is home to the strange paranormal police officers. Not that they are strange per se but rather that their powers are odd. They are the misfits that the Big Boys at State Paranormal scoff at. Over the past few months, the calls to the department have increased as strange monsters and “beings” have begun to be seen and to attack the officers. Each one has been defeated but they’ve moved from thinking that things are getting worse to the accepted reality that things are getting worse. I mean – zorpses that spout lines from plays? Who is behind all this and why?
Vampire Carrington “Carr” (old Philly family) and librarian Erasmus have been dating ever since Erasmus helped the officers deflect the attacking books (“Skim Blood and Savage Verse”) and Ras’s knowledge of the rare necromancy books which have suddenly gone missing will help them track the mastermind bent on their destruction. But will the price be their growing relationship?
At this point in the series, I think I can confidently say, this is not the book to start with. With the story arc coming to a close, a lot of references are made to past events and there are a ton of characters to try and keep straight.
I enjoyed the growing relationships that have developed over the course of the series. Four of the 77th officers have entered into steady, long term ones and two more appear poised at the end of this one. It’s also been nice to see them come together as a department, embrace their abilities and use them to defeat the evil menace. However, I was a bit unsure of exactly why the villain was so set on worldwide destruction as the answer to our problems.
As far as the villain, I caught on to who it was almost as soon as he was mentioned in this book but then you did a total flip on me about that as it appeared he wanted to be discovered. I guess when you think you’re the evil genius of the world – though he stated his reasons were to save the world from the destruction we’re already wreaking on it – you’d like some acknowledgment and applause as you deliver your villain exposition. Thank goodness the officers had bonded by then as it’s all paranormals on deck to defeat the vile otherworldly demons. I was cheering as one particular furry cadet swoops in to help save the day. She is the bomb! The fate of the evil genius is particularly apt.
Finally I have to admit that in the finale, I was thinking of a certain song by “Queen” as it was used in a certain movie about zombies. I’ve enjoyed the series and am looking forward to exploring the other ones for sale. Hopefully they all have badass kittens, too. B
~Jayne
When I was setting up the buy links, I noticed that there are now two omnibus editions of the series available for slightly less than the cost of buying each title separately.
SINGLE TITLE BUY Link
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Offbeat Crimes: Part One: A Box Set BUY Link (Books 1-3)
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Offbeat Crimes: Part Two: A Box Set BUY Link (Books 4-6)
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Thank you for this series. I’ve finally purchased the first four and am eager to start. Nowadays, fun is welcome and not overrated.
This series has been sitting in my TBR list. I think I’m going to dive in after I finish the series I am currently reading. You are right about the price difference. The odd thing is that when I looked at the individual titles on Amazon, book 4 is listed as unavailable for purchase even though it is part of the box set. I wonder if it’s an error in the system. I didn’t check other vendors
@Mikou: That is so weird. Even my buy link for the 4th book takes me straight to the 5th one and when I type in the book title, Amazon takes me to the 5th book.
@Jayne: I noticed the same and no change today. But the book seems to be available on the Publisher’s website (Pride Publishing) for $1.99.