Fans of Tanya Huff's Blood Noun series about Victory Nelson, Private Investigator may be interested to know that the fifth book, Blood Debt, is out. Having done demons, werewolves, mummies, and reanimated corpses in the previous books, Huff does ghosts in this one. (And organ-legging. Might as well plunder modern horror lore while she's pillaging the traditional sort, I suppose.)

Vicki still lives in Toronto (where all the best vampire detectives seem to work), but visits Vancouver to help out Henry Fitzroy, vampire by night, romance writer by... well, also by night. Henry's being haunted by a ghost that seems determined to spread its misery around until it gets vengeance (apparently it thinks he's the local union rep for the walking dead), so Henry calls Vicki in to solve its murder.

Blood Debt has occasional attacks of melodrama (which vampire novels seem prone to, along with velvet coats and ruffled shirts and silly alternate spellings of "vampire" -- ugh), but the characters usually make sarcastic comments that deflate the mood just as I'm about to wince. I think this is probably the most amusing and fast-moving of the Vicki books; it was more fun than I expected.

I don't like vampire novels, really I don't. I'm just very fond of books with sarcastic bitchy protagonists.

The body in the morgue had been less disturbing -- it was only dead. This spirit had moved beyond death, and shadows clung to it. Eldritch shadows, Henry found himself thinking, and shook his head to dislodge the thought. Oh, that's just what I need -- now I'm channeling adjectives from H.P. Lovecraft.