Vampire Bytes: A Crime Novel with Catherine Sayler - Hardcover

Linda Grant says that her latest Catherine Sayler mystery began when her real-life daughter Megan announced one night, "I'm going to Cal to play the vampire game. I might be late." Thanks to Grant's parental instincts (and her sharply-honed writing skills), Vampire Bytes is such a perfect Polaroid snapshot of how affluent teenagers spend their time that future scholars might well wind up studying it for clues the way researchers today dig into Chandler and Hammett for insights into 1930s and '40s lifestyles. LARP--live action role-playing--seems like lots of fun, and its young fans certainly get more exercise than they would sitting in front of a computer screen as they act out various fantasy games. But when the games turn deadly, Sayler has to use her patented combination of pragmatic detection and feisty determination to protect the role-players. Other Sayler sorties in paperback include Blind Trust, Lethal Genes, Love Nor Money, and A Woman's Place. --Dick Adler

anticipated new vampire computer game, Cult of Blood, is ready for release when its lead programmer disappears--along with the game's vital source code. Also missing: teenager Chloe Dorn, last seen playing a vampire LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) game on the streets of Palo Alto, California.

As intrepid P. I. Catherine Sayler hunts for them, the programmer's body is discovered--drained of blood, with two small puncture wounds in the neck. But Chloe is still missing, alone in a dark world where kids play at violence and the malevolence of a murderer will soon hurl them into a nightmare. . . .