Saturday, October 28, 2017

Oh Doctor My Doctor

Vivian Shaw “Strange Practice” (Orbit, 2017)


Greta Helsing is just another young doctor in London. She’s struggling to keep her small clinic open, while hustling to care for her patients.

Oh yeah, her family name used to be Van Helsing (famous for association with a certain vampire), and her patients are various members of the supernatural community.

For some reason I kept thinking that this book was sent in some modified Victorian age. Maybe that’s my automatic association when the concepts London, vampires, and Van Helsing come into play. But whatever reason, it’s not! It’s all contemporary, which actually adds to the sense of several characters being a bit out of step with the times.

And it turns out that this is really more of a cozy British mystery than anything else. It’s less Gothic scares and more vampires cooking breakfast than I had expected. And what an enjoyable cozy story this is! While the stakes are high enough, there is enough comradery and good cheer to make this a very enjoyable Halloween read on a crap year.

I’m looking forward to more of Dr Greta’s story.

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